true crime writing<\/a>, though the murder that\u00a0Didion\u00a0focuses on is mainly a cracked window through which to view the Golden State\u2019s essential ingredients \u2013 rootlessness, greed, seduction, second chances, constructed facades and a constant will to class-climb. In other words, certain transgressions can only show their purest nature under the golden haze of the California ideal.<\/p>\nDidion was focused on Old Hollywood\u2019s deathbed during her Santa Monica years, too. The piece she wrote titled \u201cJohn Way: A Love Song\u201d came from visiting the set of the Duke\u2019s 165th film, witnessing how age and illness were robbing not only the once-invincible screen icon of his strength, but robbing Tinseltown of a grand arsenal of illusions that it had sold the world around white hats and strong jawlines. And, as always, Didion was determined to ponder how the California cities that Wayne grew up \u2013 Lancaster and Glendale \u2013 helped fuel this rise and fall. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome Dreamers of the Golden Dreams\u201d and \u201cJohn Wayne: A Love Song\u201d were both re-published in Didion\u2019s groundbreaking literary nonfiction collection \u201cSlouching Towards Bethlehem.\u201d She would go on to have more landmark achievements in publishing. Today, most readers familiar with Didion often bring up her late-life memoir \u201cThe Year of Magical Thinking.\u201d That\u2019s probably because it is so relatable. Its pages contemplate the tumult that storms through a person after the unexpected death of a loved one, Didion\u2019s stream-of-coconscious prose capturing the \u201cvortexes\u201d of memory that engulf a mind in that instance, and how those internal whirlwinds tear someone\u2019s awareness across time to drop it in remote corners of the past. It\u2019s raw, aching and numb. It\u2019s totally unflinching. The book also features an ongoing collision between medical and psychological grief literature and the impenetrable fog of the human heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years before her husband\u2019s passing inspired that work, Didion had penned a very different type of memoir in the form of \u201cWhere I Was From.\u201d Partly a treatise on Sacramento\u2019s place in inspiring the California dream, and partly an interrogation of reality versus sentimentalism around pioneer history, \u201cWhere I Was From\u201d highlights Didion\u2019s life-long fascination with how the state\u2019s immense span of beaches, mountains, wetlands and deserts gave birth to such a distinct part of the American experience.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, December 2, California Groundbreakers is hosting a Didion-themed book club event around that memoir. The gathering is open to the public and includes a conversation with guest speaker Jennifer Sander, a former editor for Random House and literary historian who also offers \u201cJoan Didion\u2019s Sacramento,\u201d a two-hour driving tour of the author\u2019s homes and hangouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoan Didion would have turned 91-years-old on December 5, so in honor of this famous Sacramentan, I selected her 2003 book \u2018Where I Was From,\u2019\u201d California Groundbreakers\u2019 Vanessa Richardson noted. \u201cIt combines historical writing, journalism and memoir to show a history of California as well as Didion\u2019s own experiences living here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cWhere I Was From\u201d book event will happen in Room 10 of the Sierra 2 Center for the Arts in Curtis Park at 6:30 p.m. Participation is free, but attendees need to RSVP here for planning purposes<\/a>. The venue is located at 2791 24th Street in Didion\u2019s hometown of Sacramento.<\/p>\nThe way I write is who I am, or have become.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Joan Didion\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAll I read about is death and California.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0That was a note I messaged someone, without thinking much about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[42958,42959,38462,42960,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-73318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-california-groundbreakers","tag-curtis-park","tag-joan-didion","tag-joan-didion-in-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}