South and West

From a Notebook

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr, Nathaniel Rich

Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling author of the National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking: two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks—writings that offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary writer.

Joan Didion has always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles—and here is one such draft that traces a road trip she took with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, describes motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies' brunch at the Mississippi Broadcasters' Convention.

She writes about the stifling heat, the almost viscous pace of life, the sulfurous light, and the preoccupation with race, class, and heritage she finds in the small towns they pass through. And from a different notebook: the "California Notes" that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976. Though Didion never wrote the piece, watching the trial and being in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the city, its social hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her own upbringing in Sacramento.

Here, too, is the beginning of her thinking about the West, its landscape, the western women who were heroic for her, and her own lineage, all of which would appear later in her acclaimed 2003 book, Where I Was From.

One of TIME’s most anticipated books of 2017

One of The New York Times Book Review's “What You’ll Be Reading in 2017”

Includued among the Best Books of March 2017 by both LitHub and Signature

©2017 Joan Didion (P)2017 Random House Audio

Fairly dated but disappointing observations.

I read this out of interest in her reactions to the South of 1970. I arrived in Alabama in 1977 and thought I might compare her insights with my own.

While I came South prepared to impose my NYC Worldview on the poor Rubes, I soon realized that the folks I met and worked with were decent, hard-working people with a lot of self-knowledge of their history, a real love of their Land and Community and a genuine desire to build a Good Life for their Families. For the most part they knew their shortcomings but resented being looked down upon by more Cosmopolitan types, but didn’t want to be New York or L.A. They wanted to preserve the good parts of the South they loved and move into this New Era along with the rest of the Country.

Unfortunately, Didion didn’t let any of that dent her imperious attitude while she luxuriated in the stares her bikini and long, straight hair earned her. I didn’t expect such a shallow reaction. Maybe she reread her notes and realized how she came across and decided against publication. Her reputation has survived because of that decision.

Three stars for writing about a place I know well. I paid little attention to her few L.A. remarks. ***

"Notes" Are Not a Book

Joan Didion is an elegant writer. Her observations are crystal clear and spot-on. So it is in this "book". Although the notes (especially from the South) are decades old (her trip was for a month in the 1970's), the knack she has for quick and accurate characterization and insight are evident.

This insight is also dated. The introduction and advertisement for this book refer to its relevance in today's political climate - Didion, it seems, was able to "see the future" in the old, weary, and cynical South rather than in the forward-looking West. That claim only goes so far, because it becomes evident very quickly that the South she visited for a short while then has changed in many ways.

Can these observations be interpreted as a foreshadow of today's divisions in the country? Sure, in a way. I'd argue that the real enlightenment here is in realizing just how the casual judgment and amused contempt Didion shows for the Southerners she meets and observes (between visits with celebrated writers, that is) certainly has helped foster the seemingly insurmountable anger by those who see themselves as overlooked by America. In her eagerness to hop a plane home to the West, she is a perfect example of the "red States'" view of the dismissive Coastal city intellectual.

I'm not from the South, and I share some of Didion's regional biases. Although drawn with appreciation and some sympathy, the people she meets and describes in her notes and anecdotes are presented as local color - as stereotypical "characters" of the rural South. And the "West" part of the volume is more an add-on than a real analysis of contrasts or differences between the regions

It's not fair, of course, to assume any book or article Joan Didion might have produced from her notes at the time would have been about stereotypes or filled with judgment. Yet, in this form, there it is!

I'm afraid that, despite the respect I have for the author, I can't recommend this book. It's very short and disconnected (understandably; these are "notes") and, it seems to me, really just adds up to an excuse to publish and sell an incomplete, unfinished manuscript as a book.

it's not good...

I couldn't finish it. How did this even get published? This was my first book by Joan Didion... It really turned me off to her as a writer in general, though I have heard her other writings are better. Save your time and money. Don't read/listen to this.

Robotic performance

I couldn’t make it past the first few sentences of the first chapter. The female narrator sounds like a robot.