Joan Didion: A Biography

A woman who overcame adversity, suffered immense grief and changed literature for a whole generation. Joan Didion has been an inspiration to me for many years, her work something I will always come back to for safe haven and familiarity.

Joan Didion was born on December 5th 1934 and died on December 23rd 2021, a few weeks after her 87th birthday. She was born and raised in Sacramento, California where she fell in love with writing. At the age of five, she was given a notebook by her mother who told her to stop talking so much and instead write everything down. After that, Joan did not stop. Throughout her life and literature, California has been a rich muse. Despite living in New York and travelling around the world, her best work stemmed from the LA lifestyle she knew so well.

In 1956, after graduating from the University of Berkley in California, Joan began writing for the magazine Vogue. This was after her mother pointed out an ad they had, “Prix de Paris”, an offer for college seniors to write for the magazine and live either in Paris or New York. Just as her mother told her she would, Didion won the competition and moved to New York to be a writer. The first piece that started to project Didion’s career was, ‘Self Respect, It’s Source its Power.’ It wasn’t a typical Vogue article, but it became wildly popular.

Whilst writing and editing for Vogue, she wrote her first novel Run River in 1963. During this time living in New York, she met a fellow writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she married in 1964 and moved back to California with.

Back in California, she continued to write about the world around her. Her second book was a collection of essays and columns she had written for magazines, ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)’. This established her as a essayist and started her work looking into social and political issues.

Didion and Dunne both wrote for an array of magazines and newspapers to make ends meet. They wrote a joint column, despite often having differing views and ideas. However, they were known to be each other’s best critics. Before anything was published, they both would check and edit their pieces.

In 1966, after a few years of struggles with infidelity, Joan and John adopted their daughter Quintana Roo Dunne. The family then moved to Hollywood where Didion would begin to write one of her most famous bodies of work, her novel ‘The White Album (1979).’

It was an analysis of the 1960-70s culture (The Beatles, The Doors, Charles Manson and the California killings, Janis Joplin, etc.) She was surrounded by Rock and Roll stars, often writing pieces about their shows and music.

She famously wrote a piece about the drug epidemic that was sweeping the U.S., ‘The Center Will Not Hold’, after seeing a young five year old child on acid. In her Netflix documentary with the same name, looking back at this moment she said, “Let me tell you it was gold. I mean that is the long and the short of it…you live for moments like that. Good or bad.”

After the Manson murders in 1969, Didion spent a lot of time with Linda Kasabian as she interviewed her, both in prison and before she testified. She described it as ‘weirdly normal…but not normal at all’. Whilst the 60s-70s was a time of peace, freedom and love it would quickly become a dark and violent era.

During her short separation to husband John Dunne, they both delve into darker themes in their work. She wrote ‘Play It As It Lays (1970)’, one of her first fiction novels, however it was clear Maria was loosely based off of her. Into the 70s she started to explore other forms of media, developing a film adaptation of ‘Play It As It Lays (1972)’, ‘Panic in Needle Park (1971)’ and also writing the script for ‘A Star Is Born (1976).’

In 1982, Joan and John travelled to El Salvador during the civil war. She wanted to expand out of her California bubble, so began to observe the war that was being funded by the U.S. Government. Didion began to write about the Bush administration and criticised Richard (Dick) Cheney calling him a bully.

She was also one of the first to suspect the ‘Central Park Five’ case was a lie, digging into how the media and justice system was treating young black men in America.

In the 1990s, Joan, John and Quintana all moved back to New York where they would all live for the rest of their lives. Sadly, the family suffered an immense amount of grief and heartache during the 2000s. Quintana battled with alcoholism as a young adult and suffered from pneumonia which led her to a long stint in the hospital. It came quickly and meant she was put into an induced coma.

Around this time on December 30th 2003, John Dunne passed away from a heart attack. Joan was dealing with grief, both from her husband and her sick daughter, and began writing her novel ‘The Year of Magical Thinking.’ The memoir won a national book award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Due to Quintana’s illness, the funeral of John Dunne was delayed 3 months. Once well enough, they all flew to Malibu, however Quintana fell when getting off of the plane and suffered a life altering brain injury. She was once again in a coma and had to endure two years of rehabilitation. In 2005, at age 39, Quintana passed away.

These three years would become the hardest Didion would ever have to endure, her grief and loneliness becoming her new muse just as Sacramento once was. She explained in her documentary that, “The reason that I had to write it down was because no one had ever told me what it was like. It was a coping mechanism, it turned out, but I didn’t plan it that way.”

Following the death of her daughter, she wrote a follow-up to ‘The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)’, ‘Blue Nights (2011).’

Both these novels were loved by audiences, especially because Didion did not focus on God and the belief in an afterlife. It was something different for readers, not romanticised but understood innately by the writer.

She later wrote the novel for stage, where Vanessa Redgrave played her during her grieving time. The two were friends and were able to bond over the shared loss of their young daughters, Natasha Redgrave and Quintana.

Didion received an ‘Honorary Doctor of Letters from Harvard University’ in 2009. She later was given the ‘National Humanities Medal’ by President Barack Obama in 2013. And a few years later, in 2017, she created her Netflix Documentary with her nephew Griffin Dunne.

Joan passed away in 2021 at age 87, from complications due to Parkinson’s Disease.

She was a respected and well-loved writer, who had an elitist edge but a heart of gold that was present in her work. Her legacy and work will outlive her and will continue to be passed onto new generations.