Before the full catastrophe of life struck her broadsides, the writer Joan Didion led a shining, privileged life. She was one of the most admired American writers, reporting in novels and literary journalism from the center of the national story. Her beloved husband, John Gregory Dunne, a highly-regarded writer himself, was her most trusted confidante and collaborator. An already inseparable couple, they looked forward to spending even more time together as they grew older. Their only child, Quintana, had negotiated the rapids of adolescence and was now grown up and married. Then, famously, disaster struck. Within less than two years, her husband and daughter were dead. At seventy, Didion found herself alone. Her flinty self-reliance faced its stiffest test. Would her old pioneer code of “bury the baby and keep going” be sufficient? There to witness how Didion found her way was the writer Sara Davidson, the author of the bestselling Loose Change. She and Didion met in 1971 when Davidson, then a young reporter, phoned her idol, looking for wisdom on how to live as a woman and a writer. Didion invited her to supper, and so began a friendship that has lasted forty years. It’s a friendship with its share of amusing moments. At a Hollywood party, Davidson witnessed Didion reject an overture from Warren Beatty, then at the height of his womanizing powers. “This is all I want, right here,” he told Didion, staring into her eyes. “I don’t have to be on the set until ten Monday morning.” “This is not…feasible,” Didion responded, smiling shyly. Over the years, Didion and Davidson compared notes on marriage, men, parenthood, and careers. But most of all, they talked about writing, with Didion sharing more than four decades worth of insights acquired as far back as "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (1968) and as recently as Didion’s newest work, "Blue Nights" (2011). "Joan" is a loving, intimate portrait of a deeply private writer. It is a treasure trove of Didion’s no-nonsense wisdom about the art of literature and life, and about the power of endurance—and now, surrender. Although Didion says she has gotten no wiser with age, "Joan" belies that.
Author
Sara was born in 1943 and grew up in California. She went to Berkeley in the Sixties, where the rite of passage was to "get stoned, get laid and get arrested." After Berkeley she headed for New York to attend the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her first job was with the Boston Globe, where she became a national correspondent, covering everything from the election campaigns of Bobby Kennedy and Richard Nixon to the Woodstock Festival and the student strike at Columbia. Returning to New York, she worked as a free-lance journalist for magazines ranging from Harpers, Esquire and the New York Times to Rolling Stone. She was one of the group who developed the craft of literary journalism, combining the techniques of fiction with rigorous reporting to bring real events and people to life. Her work is collected in the textbook,The Literary Journalists, by Norman Sims. Sara moved back to California where for 25 years, she alternated between writing for television and writing books. The books tend to fall in the gray zone between memoir and fiction. She uses the voice of the intimate journalist, drawing on material from her life and that of others and shaping it into a narrative that reads like fiction. In television, she created two drama series, Jack and Mike, and Heart Beat, which ran on A.B.C. She was later co-executive producer of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, wrote hundreds of hours of drama episodes, movies and miniseries, and in 1994 was nominated for a Golden Globe. In the year 2000, her life began to unravel. She was divorced, her children were leaving for college and she couldn't find work in television. Following her intuition, knowing nobody, she drove to Boulder, Colorado for three months to be a visiting writer at the University of Colorado. She never drove back, and is piecing together a different life which she writes about in Leap Her current passions are: singing with friends, the "Shady Angels," learning piano, skiing and hiking in the Rockies.
