Writer Didion dies at 87
‘Slouching Toward Bethlehem’ among classics
Renowned writer Joan Didion, who emerged as a distinctive voice in the “New Journalism” of the 1960s to launch a decades-long and widely lauded career as an author, essayist and screenwriter, died Thursday at her Manhattan home. She was 87.
The cause of her death was complications from Parkinson’s disease, according a statement from her publisher, Penguin Random House.
“One of the the country’s most trenchant writes and astute observers,” the publisher said in a statement announcing her passing. “Her best-selling words of fiction, commentary and memoir are considered modern classics.”
Didion, born in California, was one of the leading lights in the changing of the literary guard that saw the emergence of writers Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Nora Ephron during the turbulent decade. Didion quickly became a wellknown and highly-acclaimed writer, earning kudos for her elegant prose and acute social observations.
Her skills were on full display in a pair of acclaimed collections of essays: “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” in 1968 and “The White Album” in 1979. Topics ran the gamut from Haight-Asbury hippies in her home state to reclusive magnate Howard Hughes to Los Angeles rock band The Doors.
“Joan Didion was a legend,” said journalist and former California first lady Maria Shriver in a tweet. “She wrote her mind and heart out, & we all benefited. As a journalist, a writer, a woman, a Californian — she was a tremendous influence on me in every respect.”
Didion received the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013 and a volume of her unreleased essays was published earlier this year. She was honored with a National Humanities Medal a year earlier for a lifetime of “noticing things other people strive not to see.”
“A brilliant author who changed the art of writing,” tweeted actress and fan Reese Witherspoon. “Thank you #JoanDidion for sharing your stories and work with the world. My prayers go out to all who knew and loved her.”
Didion’s non-fiction book “The Year of Magical Thinking” earned the 2005 National Book Award for Non-Fiction for her account of a turbulent stretch where her daughter became gravely ill and her husband/collaborator John Gregory Dunne died from a heart attack.
Their daughter Quintana passed away at age 39 by the time the book was published and Didion later adapted the tale into a Broadway production starring Vanessa Redgrave in 2007.
Didion also teamed with Dunne as screenwriting collaborators, working on films like “Panic in Needle Park” starring Al Pacino, a remake of “A Star is Born” starring Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand, and “Up Close and Personal” with Robert Redford.
“Panic in Needle Park,” set in New York, catapulted Pacino into stardom after she and Dunne optioned a story about drug-addicted denizens of the Upper West Side.
Didion was born in Sacramento on Dec. 5, 1934, a fifth-generation Californian whose ancestors were traveling with the doomed Donner party before opting for a safer route in 1846. She recalled growing up as a shy and bookish child.
Her career began with her victory in an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine.
The prize was a job in the publication’s New York office, and she traveled east to work as a research assistant.
Her first novel, “Run River” in 1963, failed commercially but received positive reviews and produced a contract for a second book.
A year later, she married aspiring novelist and Time magazine writer Dunne. The pair moved back to Los Angeles and spent the next two decades there — adopting their baby girl.
“Slouching Toward Bethlehem” was released to widespread critical acclaim and remains one of most resonant books of the 1960s. It was followed by her second novel “Play It as It Lays,” a tale of the West Coast film industry.
The author later focused on political writing, with dispatches on the civil war in El Salvador and the culture of Cuban emigres in Miami. Didion’s essays on the subjects were later published as the books “Salvador” and “Miami.”
A documentary of her life, “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold,” was produced and directed by Griffin Dunne, the son of her brother-in-law, and released in 2017.