not merely depict cultural changes but also the effect of those changes on
women, an interest that could be described as feminist. Other critics who
address feminist concerns in Didion’s fiction are Patricia Merivale and Janis
P. Stout (in Sharon Felton, ed., pp. 99–105, 210–227). Students might wish
to apply observations about Didion’s fictional depictions of gender to her
essays. The middle section of The White Album, “The Woman’s Movement,”
is Didion’s most direct criticism of 1970s feminism. Compare the essays in
this section to her self-presentation and the fusing of public and personal in
her other writing, a trait associated with feminism. Other areas to explore
Didion’s interest in evaluating gender issues include her depictions of pio-
neer and other women in Where I Was From and her attention to connections
between patriarchy and war in Salvador. See Lynne Hanley’s essay in Felton,
ed., pp. 171–187.- Bruce Bawer takes Didion to task in his review of We Tell Ourselves Stories
in Order to Live, concluding: “Many of the works collected in it purport to
relate some very grim facts about the lives of real people; yet, the omnibus’s
title shifts the focus from those people and their predicaments to the ‘story-
teller’—to Didion—who thereby becomes not only author but protagonist.”
Compare Bawer’s negative observations to those who defend Didion’s use of
the personal (examples of positive reviews are included in Felton), analyzing
what criteria are used to measure the worth of Didion’s writing. Students
should pay attention to those aspects of her writing that are invoked by those
who view her in a positive light and which ones by those who do not. Do
reviewers cite similar or different criteria when judging her work? Students
may wish to discuss the relative merits for each position or alternately, to
defend a particular position.
RESOURCES
Primary Works
“Dave Eggers Talks with Joan Didion,” in The Believer Book of Writers Talking to
Writers, edited by Vendela Vida (San Francisco: Believer, 2005), pp. 59–77.
Transcript of a fall 2003 interview, one in a series of interviews with writers in
San Francisco presented by City Arts & Lectures. Didion discusses her then
most recent book, Where I Was From.
Michiko Kakutani, “Joan Didion: Staking out California,” New York Times
Magazine, 10 June 1979, pp. 34–50; reprinted in Ellen G. Friedman, ed., pp.
29–40.
Review of The White Album that also describes and quotes from an interview
with Didion.
Natasha Wimmer, “Joan Didion: Telling It Like It Is (or Should Be),” Publishers
Weekly, 15 October 2001, pp. 41–42.
An essay that interweaves quotations from an interview with Didion with
descriptions of Political Fictions.