Six Things I Recently Learned About Joan Didion

The center is always falling apart

Joan Didion finally stepped back from the ongoing chaos of the world she had observed and chronicled with such elegant precision. Didion died on the day after the darkest day of 2021 — only days away from the anniversary of the fatal heart attack of her husband on December 30, 2003.

So many people have responded to the prolific writer’s death with stories of how her work impacted their lives. I felt the drag and urgency of grief and regret that I had never heard her give a reading.

I remember finding Slouching Toward Bethlehem on a shelf in a Santa Barbara bookstore because I thought it would be about WB Yeats and the poem that inspired her title.

I opened Didion’s book and read a random essay.

It had nothing to do with Yeats — like nothing I had ever read before.

Didion seemed like the female equivalent of Hemingway, a voice that drew me in and ignited me.

Didion has been essential to generations of writers and readers. Her words cut through dark and chaotic situations to make sense of them with a fragile, exacting, and sometimes-cold voice.

I notice — as I write this essay — my mind wants to link Didion’s voice to the voice of Leonard Cohen. That turned out to be a cul-de-sac.

What I did, instead, was read about Didion — essays, magazine articles, critiques. I followed leads and delved into a bit of research. I came up with a list of six details I had not known about Didion:

1) Warren Beatty was in love with her. The two had crossed paths in fancy LA parties where visual artists, musicians, actors, and writers mingled. Didion and her husband, writer John Dunne, often hosted parties at their Malibu home. I was initially surprised about Beatty’s crush on Didion, although it made complete sense. Warren Beatty was a playboy long before he settled down with Annette Benning. He dated several beautiful, talented women– Julie Christie, Natalie Wood, Diane Keaton, and Madonna to name a few. The featured narcissist in the Carly Simon song, You’re So Vain, was — you guessed it, Beatty.

Such a busy man.

2. Didion’s family legends included a relative who traveled in the caravan of nine covered wagons — later known as the Donner Party — bound for California dangerously late in the migration season. Didion’s family broke rank with that group when the majority decided on an untested shortcut. The ancestors chose a safer route through Oregon, thus preventing the gruesome tale from entering the family legacy. I am curious what a Didion treatment of that story would have been — a bleak counterbalance to Little House on the Prairie for sure.

3. The director/actor, Gretta Gerwig, whose 2017 award-winning film, Lady Bird, felt an affinity for Didion, as both women were born and raised in Sacramento. Didion was relieved to have escaped from that northern California city to what she portrayed as a more dynamic, creative, and stylish life in New York City. She later returned to the subject of Sacramento with mixed feelings. Gerwig, several decades later, also moved to New York City but continued to celebrate her birth city. The director has said that Lady Bird is a love song for Sacramento.

4. Throughout her career, Didion faced some formidable critics. Martin Amis was particularly snarky. In his review of The White Album, Amis referred to Didion as the poet of the great California void and critiqued her tendency toward dramatizing rather than reflecting her mood. Could Amis have felt threatened by the seemingly fragile writer who possessed such a powerful voice and sharp eyes?

5. As a young writer — Didion copied out sentences from A Farewell to Arms to better understand Hemingway’s style. That is probably a well-known fact, but it was news to me. Nor was I aware that Didion created a reading list of her favorite books for students when she taught at Berkley. Among the books on the list were Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and From Here to Eternity, by James Jones. Norman Mailer was on her list for The Executioner’s Song, which was a surprise. Mailer was notorious for his misogynistic, anti-feminist views.

I had not realized that Didion did not identify as a feminist. She wrote about being skeptical of progressive movements headed by white people vs. movements led by people marginalized by the mainstream fighting for real goals. Didion found early feminism to be dismissive, unrealistic, and escapist. Her brand of feminism mirrored that of Georgia O’Keeffe. Didion believed that the artist was equipped early with an immutable sense of who she was and a fairly clear understanding that she would be required to prove it.

6. I had never really paid attention to Didion’s hands before watching the documentary film, The Center Will Not Hold, directed by Didion’s nephew and niece. My attention kept being drawn away from her few words to Didion’s delicate hands — her long thin fingers, her prominent blue veins as she aged, the way her hands folded in on themselves. Her hands seemed to float and dance in the air — almost like birds. In other, older interviews, her hands are less animated but still notable — cupping her face, holding a cigarette, draped over a rail or the back of a couch.

While writing this list, I have realized Didion books I want to read anew or again, beginning with Blue Lights.

Whether Joan Didion has been an influencer in your life or not, her essays and books are worth exploring.