JOAN DIDION
Name: Joan Didion
Born: 5 December 1934
Joan Didion (born December 5, 1934) is an American writer, known as a journalist,
essayist, and novelist. Didion contributes regularly to The New York Review of
Books. According to a 1979 New York Times review of Didion's book, "The White
Album," reviewer Michiko Kakutani wrote, "Novelist and poet James Dickey has
called Didion 'the finest woman prose stylist writing in English today.'"
With her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, she collaborated on several
screenplays. She lives in New York City.
Didion was born in Sacramento, California and graduated from the University of
California, Berkeley in 1956 with a BA in English. Much of Didion's writing
draws from her life in California, particularly during the 1960s as the world in
which she grew up "began to seem remote." Her portrayals of conspiracy theorists,
paranoiacs, and sociopaths are now considered part of the canon of American
literature.
She adopted a culturally conservative stance; her early career being spent as a
Goldwater conservative and writing incisive articles in William Buckley's
National Review. Perhaps as a reaction to Reagan whom she termed a faux
conservative, or as a result of being closely aligned with progressive writers
in the New York literary world in which she moved in the seventies, she
abandoned her earlier leanings and moved toward the liberal tenets of the
Democrats. Didion retains a conservative bent, though, sharply chronicling
America after World War II with its endless search for privacy and fulfillment
of individual dreams.
Didion is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction. Her early
collections of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979)
-- a book described in one review as helping to define California as "the
paranoia capital of the world" -- made her famous as an observer of American
politics and culture with a distinctive style of reporting that mixed personal
reflection and social analysis. This led her to be associated with members of
the New Journalism such as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, though Didion's
ties to that movement have never been considered particularly strong.
Didion is not without her critics. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison skewered Didion's
style (and to some extent Didion herself) in her essay: Joan Didion: Only
Disconnect from Off Center: Essays by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison. ("When I am
asked why I do not find Joan Didion appealing, I am tempted to answer -- not
entirely facetiously -- that my charity does not naturally extend itself to
someone whose lavender love seats match exactly the potted orchids on her mantel,
someone who has porcelain elephant end tables, someone who has chosen to burden
her daughter with the name Quintana Roo....")
In 2001 Didion published Political Fictions, a collection of essays which had
first appeared in the New York Review of Books. Issues and personalities covered
in the essays included The Religious Right, Newt Gingrich, and the Reagan
administration.
Where I Was From (2003), a memoir, explores the mythologies of California, and
the author's relationship to her birthplace and to her mother. Indirectly, it
also serves as a rumination on the American frontier myth and the culture that
we see today in California as a direct consequence of a population of
survivalists who made it "through the Sierra," finally posing the question "at
what cost progress?"
Didion's latest book, The Year of Magical Thinking, was published October 4,
2005. The book-length essay chronicles the year following her husband's death,
during which Didion's daughter, Quintana, was also gravely ill. The book is both
a vivid personal account of losing a partner after 40 years of professional
collaboration and marriage, and a broader attempt to describe the mechanism that
governs grief and mourning. Although Quintana seemed to be getting better during
the period the book covers, she died of complications from acute pancreatitis on
August 26, 2005, in New York City at age 39 after an extended period of illness.
The New York Times reported that Didion would not change the book to reflect her
daughter's death. "It's finished," she said.
Didion later adapted the memoir into a one-woman play, which premiered on
Broadway in 2007 and starred her friend Vanessa Redgrave. The play includes the
event of Quintana's death, technically spanning its timeline to over a year and
a half.
Name: Joan Didion
Born: 5 December 1934
Joan Didion (born December 5, 1934) is an American writer, known as a journalist,
essayist, and novelist. Didion contributes regularly to The New York Review of
Books. According to a 1979 New York Times review of Didion's book, "The White
Album," reviewer Michiko Kakutani wrote, "Novelist and poet James Dickey has
called Didion 'the finest woman prose stylist writing in English today.'"
With her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, she collaborated on several
screenplays. She lives in New York City.
Didion was born in Sacramento, California and graduated from the University of
California, Berkeley in 1956 with a BA in English. Much of Didion's writing
draws from her life in California, particularly during the 1960s as the world in
which she grew up "began to seem remote." Her portrayals of conspiracy theorists,
paranoiacs, and sociopaths are now considered part of the canon of American
literature.
She adopted a culturally conservative stance; her early career being spent as a
Goldwater conservative and writing incisive articles in William Buckley's
National Review. Perhaps as a reaction to Reagan whom she termed a faux
conservative, or as a result of being closely aligned with progressive writers
in the New York literary world in which she moved in the seventies, she
abandoned her earlier leanings and moved toward the liberal tenets of the
Democrats. Didion retains a conservative bent, though, sharply chronicling
America after World War II with its endless search for privacy and fulfillment
of individual dreams.
Didion is the author of five novels and eight books of nonfiction. Her early
collections of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979)
-- a book described in one review as helping to define California as "the
paranoia capital of the world" -- made her famous as an observer of American
politics and culture with a distinctive style of reporting that mixed personal
reflection and social analysis. This led her to be associated with members of
the New Journalism such as Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, though Didion's
ties to that movement have never been considered particularly strong.
Didion is not without her critics. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison skewered Didion's
style (and to some extent Didion herself) in her essay: Joan Didion: Only
Disconnect from Off Center: Essays by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison. ("When I am
asked why I do not find Joan Didion appealing, I am tempted to answer -- not
entirely facetiously -- that my charity does not naturally extend itself to
someone whose lavender love seats match exactly the potted orchids on her mantel,
someone who has porcelain elephant end tables, someone who has chosen to burden
her daughter with the name Quintana Roo....")
In 2001 Didion published Political Fictions, a collection of essays which had
first appeared in the New York Review of Books. Issues and personalities covered
in the essays included The Religious Right, Newt Gingrich, and the Reagan
administration.
Where I Was From (2003), a memoir, explores the mythologies of California, and
the author's relationship to her birthplace and to her mother. Indirectly, it
also serves as a rumination on the American frontier myth and the culture that
we see today in California as a direct consequence of a population of
survivalists who made it "through the Sierra," finally posing the question "at
what cost progress?"
Didion's latest book, The Year of Magical Thinking, was published October 4,
2005. The book-length essay chronicles the year following her husband's death,
during which Didion's daughter, Quintana, was also gravely ill. The book is both
a vivid personal account of losing a partner after 40 years of professional
collaboration and marriage, and a broader attempt to describe the mechanism that
governs grief and mourning. Although Quintana seemed to be getting better during
the period the book covers, she died of complications from acute pancreatitis on
August 26, 2005, in New York City at age 39 after an extended period of illness.
The New York Times reported that Didion would not change the book to reflect her
daughter's death. "It's finished," she said.
Didion later adapted the memoir into a one-woman play, which premiered on
Broadway in 2007 and starred her friend Vanessa Redgrave. The play includes the
event of Quintana's death, technically spanning its timeline to over a year and
a half.