Review: Writing in Didion's honor — and her shadow

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Christine Lennon, Su Wu and others contribute essays to a collection on the master essayist

with how completely she was smitten with the pioneer mythology of early California and the role her proud clan played in the state’s early days. But it’s an uglier moment, Chihara writes, when Didion readily criticizes others’ decisions about how to deal, responsibly or not, with a legacy of colonization and land use.

Belonging can take many forms once you escape to California. “I haven’t had a cigarette in a very long time,” Lennon admits, “and I’ve never been cool enough to drive a Corvette.” Anyhow: Soon after the photo of Didion with that yellow Stingray was taken, Lennon reports, Didion traded it in for a Volvo.“There were days in the desert when I would lie motionless staring at the shadows of the mesquite trees,” writes, opening what is probably the collection’s most original and captivating piece.

It’s hard to say thanks. Maybe you don’t need to. Perhaps you haven’t read every word of this woman’s work. Perhaps you don’t live in Los Angeles and never plan on coming to California. But Nelson’s slim and often engaging collection is worth a read for additional context and fuel, before opening once again a dazzlingly original, imperfect and inescapable writer’s many groundbreaking and influential — if bleak and inimitable — pieces of journalism and fiction.

 

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