‘Magical Thinking’ will become a play

Author Joan Didion is adapting her best-selling memoir “The Year of Magical Thinking” into a play.

“Magical Thinking,” which has sold more than 200,000 copies and won a National Book Award, chronicles the painful period of Didion’s life following the fatal heart attack of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in 2003.

Their daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, was hospitalized at the time with pneumonia and septic shock.

Didion finished the book at the end of 2004, and it was published by Alfred A. Knopf in October 2005, two months after her daughter died.

The one-woman play will be produced by Scott Rudin, who approached her with the idea, and directed by British playwright David Hare.

“It’s almost like a detective story in which the mystery is, ‘How the hell do I find a way to suffer less?’ ” Hare said.

Rudin said he hopes to take the play to Broadway.