Joan Didion: Substance and Style

186 Pages·2021·1.359 MB·English

by  Kathleen M. Vandenberg

Joan Didion

Joan Didion
SubStance and Style
K M. V
athleen andenberg
Cover image: Joan Didion in her Corvette Stingray, 1968. Photograph by
Julian Wasser. Reprinted with permission.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic,
magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Vandenberg, Kathleen M., 1973– author.
Title: Joan Didion : substance and style / Kathleen M. Vandenberg.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020024719 | ISBN 9781438481395 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781438481401 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Didion, Joan—Criticism and interpretation. | Didion,
Joan—Literary style.
Classification: LCC PS3554.I33 Z94 2021 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024719
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Chris, Beckett, Dashiell, and Sidney,
who gave me the time, support, and space to write
And for Até, for 17 years, my constant keyboard companion

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: To Shift the Structure of a Sentence 1
Chapter 1 Language and the Mechanism of Terror: Salvador 29
Chapter 2 Preferred Narratives: New York City after the
Central Park Jogger 53
Chapter 3 Lifting the Curtain: The Rhetoric of Politics 73
Chapter 4 Terra Incognita: On Loss and Memory 103
Conclusion: What Remains 133
Notes 147
Bibliography 163
Index 169

Acknowledgments
Cover photograph © Julian Wasser.
Some parts of the conclusion were originally published in A Dark Cali-
fornia: Essays on Dystopian Depictions in Popular Culture © 2017. Edited
by Katarzyna Nowak‑McNeice and Agata Zarzycka. By permission of
McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640. www.mcfarland
books.com.
An earlier draft of chapter 5 was published in Prose Studies 39, no. 1: 39–60
DOI: 10.1080/01440357.2017.1326451, as “Joan Didion’s Memoirs: Sub‑
stance & Style,” by permission of Taylor & Francis Group, 3 Park Square,
Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN, UK. https://www.tandfonline.
com/.
ix