Joan Didion facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joan Didion
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Didion at the 2008 Brooklyn Book Festival
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| Born | December 5, 1934 Sacramento, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 23, 2021 (aged 87) New York City, U.S. |
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| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA) |
| Period | 1956–2017 |
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| Literary movement | New Journalism |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | Quintana Roo Dunne (died 2005) |
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Joan Didion (born December 5, 1934 – died December 23, 2021) was an important American writer. Her career started in the 1950s after she won an essay contest. This contest was held by Vogue magazine.
During the 1960s and 1970s, her writing explored the counterculture of the 1960s. She also wrote about the Hollywood lifestyle. Her political writing often looked at the hidden meanings in speeches and social discussions. In 1991, she wrote an early article suggesting that the Central Park Five had been wrongly accused. In 2005, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her book The Year of Magical Thinking. She later turned this book into a play. In 2013, President Barack Obama gave her the National Medal of Arts. A Netflix documentary about her, The Center Will Not Hold, came out in 2017. Her nephew, Griffin Dunne, directed it.
Contents
About Joan Didion's Life
Early Life and Schooling
Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, California, on December 5, 1934. Her parents were Frank Reese and Eduene Didion. She had a younger brother named James. Joan started writing very early, around age five. However, she didn't see herself as a writer until her work was published.
She described herself as a "shy, bookish child." She worked hard to overcome being socially anxious. She did this by acting and public speaking. Joan also loved to read. As a teenager, she typed out works by Ernest Hemingway. This helped her learn how to build sentences.
Joan's early schooling was not typical. Her father was in the United States Army Air Corps. Her family moved around a lot. So, she did not attend school regularly. In 1943 or 1944, her family returned to Sacramento. Joan wrote in her 2003 book Where I Was From that moving often made her feel like an outsider.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. This was from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. In her last year, she won an essay contest called "Prix de Paris." Vogue magazine sponsored the contest. She won a job as a research assistant at the magazine.
Working at Vogue Magazine
Joan Didion worked at Vogue for seven years, from 1956 to 1964. She started as a copywriter. She then became an associate feature editor. In 1960, Mademoiselle published her article about the University of California.
While at Vogue, she missed California. She wrote her first novel, Run, River (1963). It was about a family in Sacramento falling apart. Her friend and fellow writer, John Gregory Dunne, helped her edit the book.
Dunne wrote for Time magazine. He was the younger brother of author Dominick Dunne. Joan and John married in 1964. They moved to Los Angeles. They planned to stay only for a short time. But California became their home for 20 years. They adopted a daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, in 1966.
The couple often wrote articles for magazines. This helped them pay their bills. Their writing for The Saturday Evening Post allowed them to rent a house. They also bought a car and raised their daughter. Didion lived in Los Feliz from 1963 to 1971. Later, she lived in Malibu and then Brentwood Park.
Her First Nonfiction Book: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
In 1968, Didion published her first nonfiction book. It was called Slouching Towards Bethlehem. This book was a collection of her magazine articles. They were about her experiences in California.
Slouching Towards Bethlehem is an example of New Journalism. This style uses novel-like writing to cover real-life events. Didion wrote about the hippie counterculture. She wrote from her own point of view. She added her feelings and memories to situations. She also used many metaphors. This helped readers understand the confusion she saw in society. The New York Times praised the book for its "grace, sophistication, nuance, [and] irony."
Didion's novel Play It as It Lays came out in 1970. It was set in Hollywood. A Book of Common Prayer followed in 1977. In 1979, she published The White Album. This was another collection of magazine articles. In the title essay, Didion wrote about a nervous breakdown she had in 1968. She was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She also wrote about her chronic migraines in her essay "In Bed."
Dunne and Didion worked closely together. They co-wrote many screenplays. These included a 1972 film of her novel Play It as It Lays. They also wrote the screenplay for the 1976 film A Star is Born. They also adapted the story of journalist Jessica Savitch into the 1996 film Up Close & Personal.
Writing in the 1980s and 1990s
Didion's book Salvador (1983) was written after a trip to El Salvador. She went there with her husband. The next year, she published the novel Democracy. It was a story about love during the Cold War and the Vietnam War. Her 1987 nonfiction book Miami explored different communities in that city. In 1988, Didion moved from California to New York City.
In 1991, Didion wrote an important article for New York Review of Books. She looked at serious problems in the case against the Central Park Five. She was one of the first mainstream writers to suggest the verdicts were unfair. She thought the defendants were found guilty due to social ideas about race.
In 1992, Didion published After Henry. This book was a collection of essays. It also included a personal tribute to her friend and editor, Henry Robbins. She published The Last Thing He Wanted, a romantic thriller, in 1996.
The Year of Magical Thinking and Later Works
In 2003, Didion's daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, became very ill. She had pneumonia and then septic shock. She was in a coma. While Quintana was sick, Didion's husband suddenly died of a heart attack. This happened on December 30, 2003. Didion waited about three months to hold his funeral. She wanted Quintana to be well enough to attend.
Didion started writing The Year of Magical Thinking in October 2004. It was about her feelings after her husband's death. It also covered her daughter's serious illness. She finished the book in 88 days. This was her first nonfiction book that wasn't a collection of articles. She went on a book tour after it was released. She found the process helpful during her time of sadness. The book won several awards. It was called a "masterpiece" of memoir and journalism.
After her father's funeral, Quintana Roo Dunne fell at the airport. She hit her head and needed brain surgery. She was recovering in 2004. But she died from pancreatitis on August 26, 2005. She was 39 years old. This happened while Didion was promoting The Year of Magical Thinking. Didion wrote about Quintana's death in her 2011 book Blue Nights.
In 2005, Didion lived in an apartment in New York City. In 2006, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live was published. This book collected much of Didion's nonfiction writing.
Didion worked with playwright David Hare in 2007. They created a one-woman play based on The Year of Magical Thinking. The play starred Vanessa Redgrave. Didion found writing for the theater exciting.
Didion also wrote early versions of a screenplay for an HBO movie. It was about The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham. The movie was expected to cover the paper's reporting on the Watergate scandal.
Later Books and Documentaries
Knopf published Blue Nights in 2011. This book was a memoir about getting older. It also focused on Didion's relationship with her late daughter. The book discussed their relationship with "stunning frankness." It also dealt with Didion's worries about adopting and raising a child.
A photo of Didion was used in a fashion campaign in 2015. Her nephew, Griffin Dunne, directed a Netflix documentary about her in 2017. It was called Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. In the film, Didion talks about her writing and personal life. She discusses the deaths of her husband and daughter. This helps explain her books The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights.
Didion published Let Me Tell You What I Mean in 2021. This was a collection of 12 essays she wrote between 1968 and 2000.
Her Passing
Joan Didion died on December 23, 2021. She was 87 years old. She passed away at her home in Manhattan from complications of Parkinson's disease.
Joan Didion's Writing Style
Didion believed that the way sentences were built was very important. In her 1976 article "Why I Write," she said that changing a sentence's structure changes its meaning. She compared it to how a camera's position changes what a photo means. She felt that the "picture in your mind" tells you how to arrange words. Then, the arrangement of words tells you what is happening in that picture.
Ernest Hemingway greatly influenced Didion. His writing taught her how sentences work. She was also influenced by Henry James and George Eliot.
Didion also observed other journalists. She believed that nonfiction writing involved discovery. This discovery happened during the research, not just the writing.
Rituals were part of Didion's writing process. At the end of the day, she would take a break from writing. She said this distance helped her make good edits. She would then edit her prose. The next day, she would review her work. She would even sleep in the same room as her book. She said, "Somehow the book doesn't leave you when you're right next to it."
Awards and Recognitions
- 1981: Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1996: Edward MacDowell Medal
- 2002: The St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates
- 2005: National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Year of Magical Thinking
- 2006: American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award
- 2006: Elected to the American Philosophical Society.
- 2007: Prix Medicis Essais for The Year of Magical Thinking
- 2007: National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
- 2007: Writers Guild of America Evelyn F. Burkey Award
- 2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters, Harvard University
- 2011: Honorary Doctor of Letters, Yale University
- 2013: National Medal of Arts, presented by President Barack Obama.
- 2013: Lifetime Achievement Award, PEN Center USA
Published Books
Fiction Novels
- Run, River (1963)
- Play It as It Lays (1970)
- A Book of Common Prayer (1977)
- Democracy (1984)
- The Last Thing He Wanted (1996)
Nonfiction Books
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)
- The White Album (1979)
- Salvador (1983)
- Miami (1987)
- After Henry (1992)
- Political Fictions (2001)
- Where I Was From (2003)
- Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 (2003; preface by Frank Rich)
- Vintage Didion (2004; selected excerpts of previous works)
- The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)
- We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction (2006; includes her first seven volumes of nonfiction)
- Blue Nights (2011) ISBN: 9780307267672
- South and West: From a Notebook (2017) ISBN: 9781524732790
- Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021)
Screenplays and Plays
- The Panic in Needle Park (1971) (with John Gregory Dunne and based on the novel by James Mills)
- Play It as It Lays (1972) (with John Gregory Dunne and based on her novel)
- A Star Is Born (1976) (with John Gregory Dunne)
- True Confessions (1981) (with John Gregory Dunne and based on his novel)
- Up Close & Personal (1996) (with John Gregory Dunne)
- As it Happens (2012) (with Todd Field)
- The Year of Magical Thinking (2007) (a stage play based on her book)
See also
In Spanish: Joan Didion para niños
