25 Comments
Oct 17Liked by Petya K. Grady

This essay! So much to love here. I think I prefer Cranky Didion. She's everywoman.com. She can be cranky if she wants to be!

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I have now started The White Album... and MAN... she is so scary in that one!

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🫣🫣🫣

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I enjoyed reading my first Joan Didion this past month. I appreciate your review of her work. She is definitely an author I want to explore more.

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Which Didion did you read?

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The Year of Magical Thinking

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That's the first book by her that I read too. I really liked it. The follow-up memoir, Blue Nights, is about Quintana's death and an amazing meditation on parenthood... Kate Jones just wrote about it (I think you saw it)... it's SO GOOD. I think, as a parent, you would really appreciate it. (I wouldn't say "enjoy" because it's kind of brutal).

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Omg Petya! You nailed it with this essay- and this particular collection! I love the cool detachment of Didion's reportage, but I have to say, my heart goes to this crankier Joan. I feel like her detached journalistic persona would have me so much in thrall that I would have been afraid to speak to her, whereas I could happily have settled in with the judgy Joan for a pity party 🥳

Glad you've been having a better time with her this week ❤

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I DNF-ed the novel. I was so stressed about it but I just noticed that I wasn't reading and I knew I had to let it go. This collection was such a palette cleanser. The last essay on Martha Stewart - EveryWoman.com was so probably my favorite. Also, the one about not getting into Stanford 😂

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You have to let a book go if you know you're not picking it up. Omg she really couldn't get over the Stanford rejection 😆

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Oct 17Liked by Petya K. Grady

Reminds me of something I read in Lili Anolik’s upcoming book. Bret Easton Ellis was friends with Quintana at Bennington. He describes hanging out with Joan as “Terrifying, terrifying” and “no picnic.” I think her aloofness and withering gaze carried over beyond her new journalism, into her personal life.

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Oct 17Liked by Petya K. Grady

I mean he wrote American Psycho and he was afraid of her? 🤣

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The essay on the women's movement is BRUTAL. Just... DANG.

Have you read it?!

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That essay was a source of Eve’s frustration with Joan. She felt Joan betrayed women artists in aligning herself with men to succeed.

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I may be team Eve on this one. Is this at all discussed in the new book?

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Yes! I think Didion’s point about white people/women in America being able to choose their causes was well-expressed and ahead of its time. But using that + her own success (as I read that essay) to dismiss the entire women’s movement? Too arrogant!

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And the point that the movement was reduced to conversations about prosaics is not entirely the "movement's fault".. Also, how lucky for her to be able to move past that...

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By being born upper middle class and marrying her editor! At least that’s Lili Anolk’s take on it…

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Thank you! She dedicates After Henry to Henry Robbins and Bret Easton Ellis. I've been so curious about their relationship. And if you want petty, the dedication goes, "each of whom did time with its publisher" yikes.

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I love this. Also, she was absolutely ready to fight in the 1980s. Someone sent her out to follow the campaign and before that she wrote about the Reagans. A taster, "Perhaps Mrs. Reagan's most endearing quality was this little girl's fear of being left out, of not having the best friends and not going to the parties in the biggest houses. She collected slights."

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At some point I have to fess up and it feels like the right time... I've never read Joan Didion and I had to Google who she was because it was getting embarrassing. Next time we talk, I need you to tell me where to start!

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i really liked The Year of Magical Thinking ... it's the first book I read by her. I also really like Slouching Towards Bethlehem for a taste of her essays. I am not a fan of her fiction but if you want to try it, I would go with Play It As It Lays.

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Thank you! Adding these to my TBR list!!

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P.S. No shame, there are too many good books and talented writers to sample from.

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