Let Me Tell You What I Mean: Didion Does it Again

I wasn’t going to write this because what more is there to say, truly, about Joan Didion?

This book took me ages to finish. I read many in-between. I don’t think this has anything to do with the content, really, but it didn’t pull me.

She is a pro at writing a profile and my favorite of the bunch is the last in the book. Everywoman.com published in 2000 in The New Yorker examines, in great detail, Martha Stewart’s empire, influence, tendencies, divorce, and lasting effect on American culture. This was, of course, before she went to jail and hosted a cooking show with Snoop Dogg.

My main takeaway from this is that the more niche, specific, and obsessed with a pitch an author is the more salacious and enjoyable the resulting article is to read.

A patron at the library where I work part-time asked, “who is your favorite author?” the other day out of politeness more than anything. She had muttered it quickly and while walking away from me. Unable to actually choose I said, “Joan Didion.” Then I filled the resulting silence, “She’s an essayist. She writes novels too, but worked mainly as a journalist.” A pause, again, then “Sounds deep.” And I laughed and replied, “I guess so.”

Didion is an author I will always hope to write like - for her specificity and directness. As her novels and memoirs circle #Bookstagram it boggles my mind that people are reading The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights at a time in their life that they didn’t experience a world-shattering loss. Of course I don’t know that for certain, but I can’t imagine reading them not in mourning.

But that’s another story.

Joan Didion is one of the greats and we knew that already but this collection (although so short, only 140ish pages) took me a few months to muscle through.
I could have done without the ode to Hemingway or whatever it was called, Last Words I think? But it’s interesting to hear her POV on anything, regardless.