Joan Didion

Two excerpts from never-before-seen notebooks offer insights into the author's literary mind and process and includes notes on her Sacramento upbringing, her life in the Gulf states, her views on prominent locals and her experiences during a formative "Rolling Stone" assignment.

From a Notebook

South and West

Languidly described, Didion writes about her road trip through the South and reminisces about her belonging to the West. 

Pratik M

Not my favourite I have read from Didion yet but it really helped me pinpoint why I find all of those short videos about places to visit annoying. The overly chirpy robotic voices over fish-eye enhanced in editing shots could never capture the essence of any place the way a writer with a voice as strong as Didion's could.

For those few pages, I travelled and breathed the American South and became a Californian daughter. Are Didion's South and West a true representation of the Southern states and California? I cannot say. Her experience might not be universal but it was an experience and, briefly, mine too.

Not my favourite I have read from Didion yet but it really helped me pinpoint why I find all of those short videos about places to visit annoying. The overly chirpy robotic voices over fish-eye enhanced in editing shots could never capture the essence of any place the way a writer with a voice as strong as Didion's could.

For those few pages, I travelled and breathed the American South and became a Californian daughter. Are Didion's South and West a true representation of the Southern states and California? I cannot say. Her experience might not be universal but it was an experience and, briefly, mine too.

Matthew Royal

Joan Didion cuts across the different regions and cultures of the South, capturing her disdain for them with insightful observations in crafted language. They're somewhat unfinished narratives, but complete nuggets of feeling. Having lived in or visited the places she describes changes my acceptance of her words from omniscient truth to an unreliable observer with her own emotions and biases, and helps me come away with a better appreciation of her person.

"In a time when we have come to associate untouched lang with parkland, a luxury, Mississippi seemed rich in appearance. One forgets that this is pre-industrial, not parkland purchased at great cost in an industrial society."

"'Nothing here for the kid with an engineering degree. And of course the girls go where they marry. Southern girls are notoriously husband hunting, but I guess that's the same anywhere.' It occurred to me almost constantly in the South that had I lived there I would have been an eccentric and full of anger, and I wondered what form the anger would have taken. Would I have taken up causes, or would I have simply knifed somebody?"

Her most Daoist observation: "About the cathouse: the notion that an accepted element in the social order is a whorehouse goes hand in hand with the woman on a pedestal."

Abiiii

Lovely, relaxing. A great thing to zone out and read by candlelight. I love seeing her little half thoughts.

Angbeen Abbas

Jales

if she wants me to love her, she's doing great.
talkin about race, social class, sexist. she does it so naturally. my dream is to drink an ice coffee with her.

4.4

rohini

Laurel 

Evangelin Windel

Jessica 

From one of the most important chroniclers of our time, come two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks-writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer. Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles Here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, describes motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies' brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters' Convention. She writes about the stifling heat, the almost viscous pace of life, the sulfurous light, and the preoccupation with race, class, and heritage she finds in the small towns they pass through. And from a different notebook: the "California Notes" that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976. Though Didion never wrote the piece, watching the trial and being in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the city, its social hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here, too, is the beginning of her thinking about the West, its landscape, the western women who were heroic for her, and her own lineage.

South and West From a Notebook

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