# South and West: From a Notebook - Hardcover

by **Joan Didion** (Author), **Nathaniel Rich** (Foreword by)

**From the best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning _The Year of Magical Thinking_ two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks--writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer.**

Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles--and here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, describes motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies' brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters' Convention.

She writes about the stifling heat, the almost viscous pace of life, the sulfurous light, and the preoccupation with race, class, and heritage she finds in the small towns they pass through. And from a different notebook: the "California Notes" that began as an assignment from _Rolling Stone_ on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976. Though Didion never wrote the piece, watching the trial and being in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the city, its social hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her own upbringing in Sacramento.

Here, too, is the beginning of her thinking about the West, its landscape, the western women who were heroic for her, and her own lineage, all of which would appear later in her acclaimed 2003 book, _Where I Was From._

**One of _TIME's_ most anticipated books of 2017**

One of __The New York Times Book Review's__ "What You'll Be Reading in 2017"

Includued among the Best Books of March 2017 by both _LitHub_ and _Signature_  
  

### Author Biography

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.

**Number of Pages:** 160

**Dimensions:** 0.7 x 7.5 x 4.9 IN

**Publication Date:** March 07, 2017

## Details

- **Price:** 21.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
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## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 21.00 USD | In stock |

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- South and West: From a Notebook - Hardcover

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