Joan Didion, Dies Aged 87

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
Despite being relatively absent as of late (and more so in part due to the holidays), to which I wish you all a belated Merry Christmas; Joan Didion, one of the most famous practitioners of the New Journalism reporting method of the later half of the 20^th Century, died Thursday, December 23^nd at the age of 87, due to complications from Parkinson’s Disease.
 
Revered as one of the foremost journalists, critics, and astute observers of the later half of the 20^th Century, Joan Didion made a name for herself with her reportage from her home state of California, where she reported on the counterculture movements of the 60’s and 70’s, with her peculiar brand of reportage and journalism. From an early start though, Joan Didion was going to achieve success as a journalist. She was a copywriter for Vogue going on to work her way up to associate feature editor. Throughout this time, she wrote novels, but she is most revered and remembered for being an exemplary practitioner of New Journalism, and a chronicler of Hollywood during the late 20^th Century. Didion was a unrelentless chronicler of reality as it was. Where others would turn away, ignore, neglect or blatantly deny, Didion remarked, observed, and chronicled the realities (however unpleasant) with unflinching accuracy and integrity. This included describing the less then romantic and sympathetic portrayals that were promoted and propagated regarding the counterculture movement, instead depicting the less glamorous reality, such as the instance of a child given LSD by their parent. There are ruminations on drug encounters, issues with psychological difficulties and questions of personal mental health, as well as Black Panther Meetings, and meetings with Linda Kasabian of the infamous Manson Family, as well as portraits of various individuals.
 
Joan Didion was equally able to review herself with introspective candor. “The Year of Magical Thinking,” recounts her grief after her husband John Gregory Dunne died, as well as caring for their daughter Quintana Roo Dunne Michael. The book was praised for its analysis of the process, which includes the psychologically illogical, and avoids any sentimental or sensationalism of raw emotional outbursts. “Blue Nights,” follows a similar path, as Joan Didion works through the grief of loosing her daughter. This time, the work becomes non-linear, repetitive, and takes a more nihilistic perspective regarding the hopelessness of the waning blue twilight of that spreads forth.
 
Being the outsider was Joan Didion’s strength. She was able to blend into the landscape with a soft shadows ease. She could engage in conversation with the gas station attendant as well as the gilded superficiality of celebrity. Regardless of her ability to be incorporeal when it mattered or tangible and present for assurance, Joan Didion remained dignified and unflinching in her observations of the world as she saw them. She presented them with a matter of fact that was penetrating but not cold hearted. In the later years she became more reflective and elegiac. Though she wrote novels as well as screenplays and even theatrical adaptions of her work, she is most famous for her nonfiction, reportage, and essays that ever-mercurial form, which adapted to her whims and style, providing her the most potent and preferred form for her craft: criticism and commentary.
 
Thank you for Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary