<div>Incisive essays on Patty Hearst and Reagan, the Central Park jogger and the Santa Ana winds, from the New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of South and West. In these eleven essays covering the national scene from Washington, DC; California; and New York, the acclaimed author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album &ldquo;capture[s] the mood of America&rdquo; and confirms her reputation as one of our sharpest and most trustworthy cultural observers (The New York Times). Whether dissecting the 1988 presidential campaign, exploring the commercialization of a Hollywood murder, or reporting on the &ldquo;sideshows&rdquo; of foreign wars, Joan Didion proves that she is one of the premier essayists of the twentieth century, &ldquo;an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time&rdquo; (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review). Highlights include &ldquo;In the Realm of the Fisher King,&rdquo; a portrait of the White House under the stewardship of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, two &ldquo;actors on location;&rdquo; and &ldquo;Girl of the Golden West,&rdquo; a meditation on the Patty Hearst case that draws an unexpected and insightful parallel between the kidnapped heiress and the emigrants who settled California. &ldquo;Sentimental Journeys&rdquo; is a deeply felt study of New York media coverage of the brutal rape of a white investment banker in Central Park, a notorious crime that exposed the city&rsquo;s racial and class fault lines. Dedicated to Henry Robbins, Didion&rsquo;s friend and editor from 1966 until his death in 1979, After Henry is an indispensable collection of &ldquo;superior reporting and criticism&rdquo; from a writer on whom we have relied for more than fifty years &ldquo;to get the story straight&rdquo; (Los Angeles Times). </div>

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After Henry

<div>New York Times Bestseller: An &ldquo;elegant&rdquo; mosaic of trenchant observations on the late sixties and seventies from the author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem (The New Yorker). In this landmark essay collection, Joan Didion brilliantly interweaves her own &ldquo;bad dreams&rdquo; with those of a nation confronting the dark underside of 1960s counterculture. From a jailhouse visit to Black Panther Party cofounder Huey Newton to witnessing First Lady of California Nancy Reagan pretend to pick flowers for the benefit of news cameras, Didion captures the paranoia and absurdity of the era with her signature blend of irony and insight. She takes readers to the &ldquo;giddily splendid&rdquo; Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the cool mountains of Bogot&aacute;, and the Jordanian Desert, where Bishop James Pike went to walk in Jesus&rsquo;s footsteps&mdash;and died not far from his rented Ford Cortina. She anatomizes the culture of shopping malls&mdash;&ldquo;toy garden cities in which no one lives but everyone consumes&rdquo;&mdash;and exposes the contradictions and compromises of the women&rsquo;s movement. In the iconic title essay, she documents her uneasy state of mind during the years leading up to and following the Manson murders&mdash;a terrifying crime that, in her memory, surprised no one. Written in &ldquo;a voice like no other in contemporary journalism,&rdquo; The White Album is a masterpiece of literary reportage and a fearless work of autobiography by the National Book Award&ndash;winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking (The New York Times Book Review). Its power to electrify and inform remains undiminished nearly forty years after it was first published. </div>

The White Album

<div>An astonishing account of Cuban exiles, CIA informants, and cocaine traffickers in Florida by the New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of South and West. In Miami, the National Book Award&ndash;winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking looks beyond postcard images of fluorescent waters, backlit islands, and pastel architecture to explore the murkier waters of a city on the edge. From Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion to Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination to Oliver North and the Iran&ndash;Contra affair, Joan Didion uncovers political intrigues and shadowy underworld connections, and documents the US government&rsquo;s &ldquo;seduction and betrayal&rdquo; of the Cuban exile community in Dade County. She writes of hotels that offer &ldquo;guerrilla discounts,&rdquo; gun shops that advertise Father&rsquo;s Day deals, and a real-estate market where &ldquo;Unusual Security and Ready Access to the Ocean&rdquo; are perks for wealthy homeowners looking to make a quick escape. With a booming drug trade, staggering racial and class inequities, and skyrocketing murder rates, Miami in the 1980s felt more like a Third World capital than a modern American city. Didion describes the violence, passion, and paranoia of these troubled times in arresting detail and &ldquo;beautifully evocative prose&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). A vital report on an immigrant community traumatized by broken dreams and the cynicism of US foreign policy, Miami is a masterwork of literary journalism whose insights are timelier and more important than ever. </div>

Miami

<div>The &ldquo;dazzling&rdquo; and essential portrayal of 1960s America from the author of South and West and The Year of Magical Thinking (The New York Times). Capturing the tumultuous landscape of the United States, and in particular California, during a pivotal era of social change, the first work of nonfiction from one of American literature&rsquo;s most distinctive prose stylists is a modern classic. In twenty razor-sharp essays that redefined the art of journalism, National Book Award&ndash;winning author Joan Didion reports on a society gripped by a deep generational divide, from the &ldquo;misplaced children&rdquo; dropping acid in San Francisco&rsquo;s Haight-Ashbury district to Hollywood legend John Wayne filming his first picture after a bout with cancer. She paints indelible portraits of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes and folk singer Joan Baez, &ldquo;a personality before she was entirely a person,&rdquo; and takes readers on eye-opening journeys to Death Valley, Hawaii, and Las Vegas, &ldquo;the most extreme and allegorical of American settlements.&rdquo; First published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has been heralded by the New York Times Book Review as &ldquo;a rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country&rdquo; and named to Time magazine&rsquo;s list of the one hundred best and most influential nonfiction books. It is the definitive account of a terrifying and transformative decade in American history whose discordant reverberations continue to sound a half-century later. </div>

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

<div>A &ldquo;scathing novel&rdquo; of one woman&rsquo;s path of self-destruction in 1960s Hollywood&mdash;by the New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of The White Album (The Washington Post Book World). Spare, elegant, and terrifying, Play It as It Lays is the unforgettable story of a woman and a society come undone. Raised in the ghost town of Silver Wells, Nevada, Maria Wyeth is an ex-model and the star of two films directed by her estranged husband, Carter Lang. But in the spiritual desert of 1960s Los Angeles, Maria has lost the plot of her own life. Her daughter, Kate, was born with an &ldquo;aberrant chemical in her brain.&rdquo; Her long-troubled marriage has slipped beyond repair, and her disastrous love affairs and strained friendships provide little comfort. Her only escape is to get in her car and drive the freeway&mdash;in the fast lane with the radio turned up high&mdash;until it runs out &ldquo;somewhere no place at all where the flawless burning concrete just stopped.&rdquo; But every ride to nowhere, every sleepless night numbed by pills and booze and sex, makes it harder for Maria to find the meaning in another day. Told with profound economy of style and a &ldquo;vision as bleak and precise as Eliot&rsquo;s in &lsquo;The Wasteland&rsquo;,&rdquo; Play It as It Lays ruthlessly dissects the dark heart of the American dream (The New York Times). It is a searing masterpiece &ldquo;from one of the very few writers of our time who approaches her terrible subject with absolute seriousness, with fear and humility and awe&rdquo; (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review). </div>

Play It as It Lays

<div>Three essential works that redefined the art of journalism by &ldquo;one of our sharpest and most trustworthy cultural observers&rdquo; (The New York Times). In these masterpieces of razor-sharp reportage, the National Book Award&ndash;winning and New York Times&ndash;bestselling author proves herself one of the premier essayists of the twentieth century, &ldquo;an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time&rdquo; (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review). Slouching Towards Bethlehem: America in the 1960s&mdash;a pivotal era of social change and generational divide. Here is Joan Didion on the &ldquo;misplaced children&rdquo; of Haight-Ashbury as well as John Wayne in Hollywood; folk singer Joan Baez and reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes; the extremes of both Death Valley and Las Vegas. Named to Time magazine&rsquo;s list of the one hundred best and most influential nonfiction books, this is &ldquo;a rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). The White Album: A New York Times bestseller, this landmark essay collection confronts the dark aftermath of the 1960s. From a jailhouse visit to Huey Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, to a recording session with The Doors, from the culture of shopping malls to the contradictions of the women&rsquo;s movement, Joan Didion captures the paranoia and absurdity of the era with irony and insight. And in the iconic title essay, she documents her uneasy state of mind during the years leading up to and following the Manson murders&mdash;a terrifying crime that, in her memory, surprised no one. After Henry: Whether reporting on a Hollywood murder or the &ldquo;sideshows&rdquo; of foreign wars, Joan Didion crystalizes her reputation as a brilliant essayist. Highlights include a portrait of the White House under the Reagans, two &ldquo;actors on location&rdquo;; an unexpected meditation on the Patty Hearst case; and an expos&eacute; on the racial divisions and class fault lines of New York City following the rape of the Central Park jogger. An indispensable collection from a writer on whom we can rely &ldquo;to get the story straight&rdquo; (Los Angeles Times).</div>

Joan Didion
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Books By Joan Didion (6 Books)

After Henry

The White Album

Miami

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Play It as It Lays

Collected Essays

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© 2023 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Joan DidionFollow this author

Books By Joan Didion (6 Books)

After Henry

The White Album

Miami

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Play It as It Lays

Collected Essays

RELATED POSTS ABOUT JOAN DIDION

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More from

Corporate

© 2023 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Joan Didion
Follow this author