Synopses & Reviews
Joan Didion's incomparable and distinctive essays and journalism are admired for their acute, incisive observations and their spare, elegant style. Now the seven books of nonfiction that appeared between 1968 and 2003 have been brought together into one thrilling collection.
"Slouching Towards Bethlehem" captures the counterculture of the sixties, its mood and lifestyle, as symbolized by California, Joan Baez, Haight-Ashbury. "The White Album" covers the revolutionary politics and the contemporary wasteland of the late sixties and early seventies, in pieces on the Manson family, the Black Panthers, and Hollywood. "Salvador" is a riveting look at the social and political landscape of civil war. "Miami" exposes the secret role this largely Latin city played in the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs through Watergate. In "After Henry" Didion reports on the Reagans, Patty Hearst, and the Central Park jogger case. The eight essays in "Political Fictions" — on censorship in the media, Gingrich, Clinton, Starr, and compassionate conservatism, among others-show us how we got to the political scene of today. And in "Where I Was From" Didion shows that California was never the land of the golden dream.
Review:
"A useful chronology matches events in the author's life with historical events and a literary context." Library Journal
Review:
“Her intelligence is as honed as ever . . . Her vision is ice-water clear . . . Didion has captured the mood of America.”
New York Times
Review:
“I have been trying forever to figure out why [Didion’s] sentences are better than mine or yours . . . Something about [their] cadence. They come at you, if not from ambush, then in gnomic haikus, ice pick laser beams, or waves. Even the space on the page around these sentences is more interesting than it ought to be, as if to square a sandbox for a Sphinx.”
from the Introduction by John Leonard
Synopsis:
For the first time, all of Didion's nonfiction writing on place, politics, lifestyle, and cultural figures from the 1960s to 2003 have been gathered together in one volume.
About the Author
Joan Didion was born in California and lives in New York City. She is the author of five novels and seven previous books of nonfiction.
Table of Contents
Introduction by John LeonardSelect Bibliography
Chronology
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
The White Album
Salvador
Miami
After Henry
Political Fictions
Where I Was From
Notes to Miami
Acknowledgments
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