I’m a big fan of Joan Didion. I’ve read most of her published works, with her novel Play It As It Lays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and The Year of Magical Thinking among my favourites. What I’ve always appreciated about her writing is the precision and emotional depth she brings to her words. Few others come close. She possessed an unmatched ability to distil complex emotions and cultural shifts into sentences that feel both effortless and weighty.
Joan Didion's writing is a masterclass in precision and insight. Her distinctive style, marked by pared-down, rigorous prose, captured the nuances of American life and personal introspection. As a leading figure in the New Journalism movement of the 1960s, Didion's work blended literary flair with journalistic integrity, offering readers a profound lens through which to view the world.
Beyond her writing, Didion cultivated a public persona of cool detachment and acute observation. You can see it in the series of well-known photographs of her. The poses ooze a studied cool.
Her ability to remain an outsider while providing incisive commentary made her both enigmatic and influential, which cemented her status as a literary icon among readers and writers alike.
It has been a little over three years since Joan Didion's death in December 2021 at the age of 87. Although her death marked the end of an era, her works continue to inspire and influence.
For anyone who has never read or only dabbled in reading Joan Didion. You’re in the right place. For me, these are the five essential books to begin with:
1. Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
This seminal collection of essays captures the essence of 1960s America, particularly the counterculture movement in California. The title essay, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is a piercing examination of the hippie movement in Haight-Ashbury, revealing its underlying aimlessness and disillusionment. Another standout, Goodbye to All That, is one of Didion’s most beloved personal essays. It chronicles her youthful love affair with—an eventual disillusionment with—New York City. Through her keen observations, Didion explores themes of morality, disintegration, and self-deception.
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
2. The White Album (1979)
In this collection, Didion reflects on the fragmentation of American society in the late 1960s and 1970s. She delves into subjects ranging from the Tate-LaBianca murders to California's water politics, all while interweaving personal anecdotes. The essay The White Album is one of her most famous works, blending personal experience with larger cultural shifts, including her encounters with the Black Panthers and the Doors. Another standout essay, On the Morning After the Sixties, dissects the idealism of the decade and the uneasy reality that followed. These essays serve as a testament to Didion’s ability to document history as it unfolded.
"We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images."
3. Play It As It Lays (1970)
This novel hauntingly portrays Hollywood and the emptiness that often accompanies fame. Through the character of Maria Wyeth, Didion examines themes of existential despair and societal expectations. Maria is an actress drifting through a world of meaningless relationships and destructive patterns, embodying Didion’s signature themes of alienation and control—or the lack thereof. The novel is fragmented, mirroring Maria’s mental state, and written in Didion’s characteristic precise, minimalist prose.
"I know what 'nothing' means, and keep on playing."
4. The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
This poignant memoir details Didion's journey through grief following the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. It offers an intimate look at loss, memory, and the struggle to find meaning in tragedy. Didion meticulously dissects the psychology of mourning, capturing grief's surreal, dissociative quality. The memoir’s strength lies in its refusal to provide easy answers, instead embracing the chaos and unpredictability of loss.
"Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
5. Salvador (1983)
In this extended essay, Didion provides a harrowing account of her two-week visit to El Salvador during its civil war. Her observations shed light on the complexities of political turmoil and the human condition amidst chaos. Didion’s detached yet piercing prose sharply focuses on the brutality of war, making Salvador one of her most politically charged works. She captures the surreal horror of a country in crisis, revealing both the absurdity and the tragedy of violent conflict.
"Terror is the given of the place."
Didion’s influence on contemporary writers
Joan Didion's influence on contemporary literature is profound and far-reaching. She shaped the voices of many writers who followed her. Her distinctive style, characterised by precise prose and incisive cultural commentary, has left an indelible mark on the literary landscape.
Influence on writing style
Didion's meticulous attention to sentence structure and rhythm has inspired countless authors to refine their writing styles. Her approach to prose, emphasising clarity and economy, has become a benchmark for literary excellence. In the Paris Review, Didion credited Ernest Hemingway with teaching her "how sentences worked," a lesson she internalised and transformed into her unique voice.
Impact on the New Journalism
As a pioneer of the New Journalism movement, Didion's blending of literary techniques with journalistic inquiry opened new avenues for narrative nonfiction. The White Album is a prime example of this, where she weaves together personal experience, historical events, and cultural analysis into a fragmented yet cohesive narrative.
Her work demonstrated that personal perspective could coexist with factual reporting, a methodology that has influenced writers like Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. One of the most famous essays in The White Album covers the Manson family murders, where Didion captures the eerie, unravelling mood of California at the time, blending firsthand observation with a deep sense of unease.
"This is a story about love and death in the golden land and begins with the discovery of an empty swimming pool." (The White Album)
Mentorship and direct influence
Didion's impact extends beyond her published works; she also mentored emerging writers. Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, has spoken about how discovering Didion's work in high school shaped his literary aspirations. He admired her style so much that he typed out her paragraphs to understand their construction, stating, "I realised This is how I want to sound."
Legacy and continued inspiration
The enduring relevance of Didion's work is evident in the continued study and emulation of her style. Her ability to dissect the American experience with precision and empathy has set a standard for literary journalism and fiction alike. Writers today continue to draw inspiration from her unflinching examination of culture and self, ensuring that her legacy persists in contemporary literature.
In essence, Joan Didion's contributions have not only enriched the literary world with her writings but have also paved the way for future generations of authors to explore and express their unique voices.
If you’re new to Didion, any of these books are the perfect place to start. And if you’ve already read her work, I’d love to know if the book/s of hers has stayed with you.
Six essential Joan Didion quotes: On writing, life, and loss
On why we write
"I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."
– Why I Write (1976)
On life and self-respect
"Character – the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life – is the source from which self-respect springs."
– Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
On memory and time
"We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were."
– On Keeping a Notebook, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
On grief and loss
"Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it."
– The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
On staying connected to who we were
"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends."
– Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
On the nature of writing and betrayal
"My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out."
– Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
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