{"id":5198,"date":"2006-08-21T17:21:18","date_gmt":"2006-08-21T21:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5198"},"modified":"2015-05-23T19:51:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T23:51:30","slug":"didion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5198","title":{"rendered":"Profile of Joan Didion"},"content":{"rendered":"

This profile of her blew me away.<\/a> Didion fans – you won’t want to miss it.<\/p>\n

She’s a real idol of mine, always has been since I read her essay “Goodbye to all That”. There are essays I go back to again and again – the “White Album” one, the one about the Manson Family and that summer in Los Angeles – her spectacular piece on Patty Hearst … And of course I read her book written in the aftermath of her husband’s death The Year of Magical Thinking<\/i>. Since her husband died in 2003 – her daughter Quintana (very ill throughout Magical Thinking<\/i>) died. Quintana was in her 30s. Magical Thinking<\/i> was barely pleasant to read – and I had to force myself at times to get through it.<\/p>\n

The book does not blink. That’s the only way I can describe it. Didion doesn’t blink as she stares at her own grief and tries to write it all down. Breathtaking and awful.<\/p>\n

Like I said: she’s an idol.<\/p>\n

I am chilled, though, reading that piece. I think about her sometimes, even though I don’t know her. And I wonder: “I know she’s working on the script now … but … how is she doing? How’s she holding up?” I feel really sad. I feel bludgeoned by the grief of a person I do not know.<\/p>\n

I loved this, though – I loved it so much<\/i>:<\/p>\n

Who, I ask, were here formative influences? Her answer is surprising. ‘Oh, Hemingway, really. Just Hemingway.’ He seems to have fallen out of fashion, I say. ‘Yes, but nobody writes sentences like Hemingway. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Oh, Hemingway, really. Just Hemingway.”<\/p>\n

Damn. That piece shook me up. It really did.<\/p>\n

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