”My only advantage as a reporter is that I am so physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.” (Joan Didion 1968)
Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem was her first collection of nonfiction writing exploring America—specifically California—during the 1960s. Although most of the essays focus exclusively on California, I wouldn’t call Slouching Towards Bethlehem an ode to Didion’s home state. Her family has deep roots in California, so Didion is able to offer unflinching observations of the state, which made reading her essays especially intriguing, imagining the places in California that I’ve known my whole life in a different lifetime.
Didion is an author in total command of how she expresses her emotions in her work. As a reporter and journalist, she describes interactions and settings with great detail. Slouching Towards Bethlehem’s observations on the 1960s counterculture are a delight to read. Didion’s collection redefined what journalism could be—and what it is—an art form.