Today, Joan Didion turns 87.
People who know me, will know I’m a huge Didion fan. So it seems apt to dedicate my last newsletter of 2021 to the writer, on her birthday. (People who aren’t so enamoured may want to skip this one)
I’ve recently been suffering with writer’s block; a fog has descended on my brain which has made concentrating hard - and writing even harder. I’m blaming it on the time of year. These last few weeks before Christmas seem never-ending and yet race by in an instant, colds (and Covid) are spreading, everyone is tired, days are short, dark and cold. The Christmas cheer is yet to kick in. And the blank page stares back at me.
What do I do when this happens? I either scroll mindlessly, alternating between Twitter and Instagram. Or I read some Didion. Reading her writing is like eating soup when you’ve got a sore throat: it soothes and comforts and warms you up from the inside. I don’t know why, it just does.
I re-read her essay ‘Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream’ (from her book ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’), which is essentially about a woman named Lucille Miller who was charged with murdering her husband by setting him on fire in their car (a true story).
It’s a morbid subject, yes, but what I love about it is her pervasive reporting; Didion is omnipresent, she knows all the facts, and all the mundane details that most people would skip over, like that Gordon “Cork” Miller was $63,479 in debt and constantly complained about having migraines after he accidentally hit a German Shepherd in his Volkswagen. It verges on obsessive and might seem irrelevant, but it builds a picture of the man, and the relationship. It is also the way she sets the scene, eking out the details of the place, slowly drawing the reader in and establishing her voice. The location is a key character in the story; Didion is a native of California and knows the landscape like the back of her hand:
“This is a story about love and death in the golden land, and begins with the country. The San Bernardino Valley lies only an hour east of Los Angeles by the San Bernardino Freeway but is in certain ways an alien place: not the California of the subtropical twilights and the soft westerlies off the Pacific but a harsher California, haunted by the Mojave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves.”
It’s easy to get stuck in a certain way of writing - particularly in journalism, where there is usually a formula you can’t stray too far from: the 5 W’s (and H), sentences that are easily accessible and to the point, no rambling, etc. The priorities are accuracy, newsworthiness, and meeting deadlines - time is a luxury journalists can’t afford. Didion’s priority is purely the story-telling. She immerses herself in her subject and then writes the story as if it’s fiction; building up characters and layers of drama and intrigue - characteristics of New Journalism which she was a pioneer of in the 1960s.
Of course, Didion is more of an essayist than a journalist. Most editors would likely baulk if I filed an article that read more like a novel (and would promptly cut most of it). But it is a nice reminder that even a teaspoon of creativity can help your work break out from those parameters.
Didion initially wanted to become an actress, she later said that the two professions are similar: “It’s make-believe. It’s performance. The only difference being that a writer can do it all alone.” The page is her stage. You can see this from the way she creates these incredibly cinematic worlds, be it in her non-fiction essays, memoirs, screenplays, or novels.
This artistry is also in her voice, which contains an undeniable edge of disdain - uniquely Didion, obvious in this passage from ‘Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream’:
“[This is] the country of the teased hair and the Capris and the girls for who all life’s promise comes down to a waltz-length white wedding dress and the birth of a Kimberly or a Sherry or a Debbi and a Tijuana divorce and a return to hairdressers’ school.”
Her observations are sharp, cutting like a shard of glass. In the end, the essay isn’t really about Lucille Miller or her husband or the murder, it’s about false hopes in this golden land - a place that can drive you over the edge.
It’s these observations that make you yearn to know what she thinks of the world today. Several journalists have tried to ask her - one of her latest interviews was this one with TIME, which is both hilarious and excruciatingly painful. She gives the impression that she just doesn’t give a shit. Fair enough: it must be hard being expected to provide glittering bon mots constantly.
She’s 87 now, let’s give her a break.
So, if you’re looking for an absorbing, entertaining, shrewd read, pick up one of her books (or essays - some of which you can find online). It might just fix your writer’s block.
Reading
Slouching Towards Bethlehem - If you read any Joan Didion, make it this one.
‘I sniffed out good news like a bloodhound’: how I broke my doom scrolling habit - Pandora Sykes writes movingly about trying to find a way out of postnatal depression, which included ignoring bad news and instead hunting down positive news aka ‘joyscrolling’.
The Great Accelerator: Why are we feeling so much pressure to make big life decisions? - Yes, yes, yes to everything Vicky Spratt writes, but especially this, on why the pandemic has made more young people feel they’ve “lost time” and now feel the need to dive headfirst into change.
The ship that became a bomb - A gripping long read from The New Yorker on a ticking time bomb in the middle of the Red Sea, off Yemen’s coast. The tanker contains more than a million barrels of oil - and soon will either sink or explode. Not only is it a huge threat to millions of Yemenis, but it will have devastating consequences for the surrounding ecosystem.
The UK announced an Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme in August. Nothing’s happened. Why? - on Gal-Dem, Nadia Hasan, from the Joint Council of the Welfare of Immigrants, debunks the UK government’s “warm welcome” promise to Afghan refugees after the Taliban takeover. The resettlement scheme would be the only safe route to the UK and is supposed to help 5,000 people this year (which many argue is not enough) - but three months on it is yet to start. This is an urgent reminder that we need safe routes for refugees, made even more poignant after the recent tragedy of at least 27 people - including three children - drowning in the English Channel as they were attempting to reach the UK.
Ailbhe Rea’s Diary: Why I spoke out about Stanley Johnson - A brave piece from The New Statesman’s political correspondent on why she spoke out about Stanley Johnson groping her at a Conservative party conference:
“The culture of entitlement to women’s bodies begins with smaller acts than this and often leads to far, far worse.”
Watching
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold - A portrait of the icon in documentary form. Directed by her nephew, Griffin Dunne, this is an intimate look at Didion’s life and work. The interviews with her are candid and reveal her quirky habits, like how she would put her manuscript in the fridge whenever she had writer’s block (maybe I’ll try that next time).
Writing
What Joan Didion taught me about failure - One from the archives (I did warn you this newsletter would be Didion heavy). A couple of years ago I wrote about what Joan Didion has taught me about failure, grief and lots more:
“One thing you can always rely on: Didion doesn’t sugarcoat anything. She writes with honesty about her life, her insecurities, her guilt, her what ifs, and sometimes even her stupidity, her carelessness. And yet, these aren’t your typical confessional essays – there is a lack of self-indulgence – she is simply telling it how it is and in doing this she reveals something about you and me and the fallibility of all humans.”
Thanks for reading!