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The Latest Joan Didion Book — What to Respect and What to Question
When is an exploration of the personal exploitative? When is it clear?
Joan Didion wields outsized influence even now, several years after her death. Her most recent book, Notes to John, her husband, was just published. The book details the conversations with her psychiatrist from 1999–2001, the notes from the conversations typed and neatly filed, found after her death. This is also the time that was airing its first seasons, with the construct of Tony Soprano talking to his psychiatrist.
I am entranced by Joan Didion. She was a great writer. She wrote, thought clearly, and connected the dots of the culture into a reduction, a through-line. She was one of the first writers to question the correctness of the rampagers’ convictions.
Joan had great talent but also struggled with life setbacks: health, relationships, and the writing market. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in later life, and the documentary T shows her face in the Parkinson’s mask, except when laughter breaks the set muscles. Weekly, debilitating migraines were part of her life, as was an early MS diagnosis, although the MS was in remission, and remains a question for me.
