Title: The World According to Joan Didion
Author: Evelyn McDonnell
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: 4th Estate (Harper Collins)
Cost: Rs 599

At the centre is the location. “She sought her jackpot in journalistic explorations of new places, people, and cultures,” writes Evelyn McDonnell (below) about California-born Joan Didion, one of the most iconic writers of the 20th century. McDonnell’s new book, The World According to Joan Didion, is timely because it stands as a reminder, lest we forget, what important journalism and writing can do.

When Didion passed away in 2021, many mourned her death. Not just journalists alone; the compass had no end. The sheer variety of newspapers and magazines that paid her an obituary are testament to how wide she spread her wings. Didion reported the political strain in the US and the El Salvador Civil War of 1982; wrote novels that transformed American thinking; teamed with her husband John Gregory Dunne to develop screenplays; composed fashion pieces; critiqued the media’s imprudence; and cried her heart out in her memoirs. Didion was “fearless, original, and a marvellous observer”, said Robert B. Silvers, the editor of New York Review of Books, an important figure in her life to whom McDonnell dedicates an entire chapter.