the system of intentionality the implied Didion has established to this point,
the narrating-I’s and the implied author’s endorsement of the experiencing-I’s
response to the report is, to put it kindly, inadequate.
By this point in the narrative, the narrating-I has reported that John had
a history of heart trouble and of treatments for it, including an angioplasty in
his left anterior descending artery in 1987. By this point, the narrating-I has
also reported that the experiencing-I has been looking for evidence of some-
thing she or John could have done to prevent his heart attack. In fact, on the
previous page she has emphasized how strongly this search affects the psychic
life of the experiencing-I: watching a television commercial that claims Bayer
aspirin can reduce the risk of heart attacks, she “was seized . . . by the possible
folly of having overlooked low-dose aspirin” (206), even though she knows
John is taking Coumadin. The implied Didion has the narrating-I conclude
this section with these comments:
As I recall this I realize how open we are to the persistent message that we
can avert death.
And to its punitive correlative, the message that if death catches us we
have only ourselves to blame. (206)The troubling passage then begins:
Only after I read the autopsy report did I begin to believe what I had been
repeatedly told: nothing he or I had done or not done had either caused or
could have prevented his death. . . .
Greater than 95 percent stenosis of both the left main and the left ante-
rior descending arteries.
Acute infarct in distribution of left anterior descending artery, the LAD.
That was the scenario. The LAD got fixed in 1987 and it stayed fixed until
everybody forgot about it and then it got unfixed. We call it the widowmaker,
pal, the cardiologist had said in 1987. (206–7)It is the clause “everybody forgot about it” that does not fit with the purpo-
sive design, the system of intentionality governing the narrative. The problem
with the clause is not what it reports: the human mind has a remarkable ability
to compartmentalize, and this forgetting can be read as another example of
that ability. The problem is that, according to the purposive design of the nar-
rative, with its frequent and recent signals about the experiencing-I’s quest to
find something that could have been done to prevent John’s heart attack, the
admission that “everybody forgot about it” should not lead the experiencing-I,
IMPLIED AUTHOR, DEFICIENT NARRATION, AND NONFICTION • 207