A Foreword
Insider Baseball
The West Wing of Oz
Eyes on the Prize
Newt Gingrich, Superstar
Political Pornography
Clinton Agonistes
Vichy Washington
God’s Country
JOAN DIDION was born in Sacramento in 1934 and graduated from the
University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. After graduation,
Didion moved to New York and began working for Vogue, which
led to her career as a journalist and writer. Didion published her
first novel, Run River, in 1963. Didion’s other novels include A
Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), and The Last Thing
He Wanted (1996).
Didion’s first volume of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was
published in 1968, and her second, The White Album, was published
in 1979. Her nonfiction works include Salvador (1983), Miami
(1987), After Henry (1992), Political Fictions (2001), Where I Was
From (2003), We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live (2006),
Blue Nights (2011), South and West (2017) and Let Me Tell You What
I Mean (2021). Her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the
National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005.
In 2005, Didion was awarded the American Academy of Arts & Letters
Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters. In 2007, she was
awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished
Contribution to American Letters. A portion of National Book
Foundation citation read: "An incisive observer of American
politics and culture for more than forty-five years, Didion’s
distinctive blend of spare, elegant prose and fierce intelligence
has earned her books a place in the canon of American literature as
well as the admiration of generations of writers and journalists.”
In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by
President Barack Obama, and the PEN Center USA’s Lifetime
Achievement Award.
Didion said of her writing: "I write entirely to find out what I’m
thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” She
died in December 2021.
Winner of the George Polk Book Award
“One of our most cherished and insightful explicators of American
culture...brings her perspective to the ultimate insider world.”
–San Francisco Chronicle“Splendid . . . Didion [is] on pure zen
target . . . [with] her sonar ear, her radar eye, and her ice
pick/laser beam/night—scope sniper prose.” –The New York Times Book
Review“A steel spine of political argument . . . a mordant wit,
refined critical powers, and a bone-deep knowledge of the ways in
which Americans like to amuse and fool themselves.” –The Washington
Post Book World“One of the most preeminent voices of journalism has
stepped into the ring. . . . [A] gift.” –Susan Faludi, The New York
Observer
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