Didion began writing "The Year of Magical Thinking", a narrative of her response to the death of her husband and the severe illness of their daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, on October 4, 2004, and finished the manuscript 88 days later on New Year's Eve. Written at the age of seventy, this was her first nonfiction book that was not a collection of magazine assignments. She went on a book tour following the book's release, doing many readings and promotional interviews, and has said she found the process very therapeutic during her period of mourning.