She has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing always in control.' Her powerful irony is often sorrowful rather than clever. Joyce Carol Oates has written, 'Joan Didion is one of the very few writers of our time who approaches her terrible subject with absolute seriousness, with fear and humility and awe. Her essays not only describe the subject at hand-the murderous housewife, the little girl trailing the rock group, the millionaire bunkered in his mansion-but also offer a broader vision of America, one that is both terrifying and tender, ominous and uniquely her own. In essay after essay, Didion captures the dislocation of the 1960s, the disorientation of a country shredding itself apart with social change.

A rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country.' 'In her portraits of people,' 'The New York Times Book Review wrote, 'Didion is not out to expose but to understand, and she shows us actors and millionaires, doomed brides and naive acid-trippers, left-wing ideologues and snobs of the Hawaiian aristocracy in a way that makes them neither villainous nor glamorous, but alive and botched and often mournfully beautiful. Her unblinking vision and deadpan tone have influenced subsequent generations of reporters and essayists, changing our expectations of style, voice, and the artistic possibilities of nonfiction. Upon its publication in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem confirmed Joan Didion as one of the most prominent writers on the literary scene. As Joyce Carol Oates remarked: “ has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing always in control.”

More than perhaps any other book, this collection by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era captures the unique time and place of Joan Didion’s focus, exploring subjects such as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up in California and the nature of good and evil in a Death Valley motel room, and, especially, the essence of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the heart of the counterculture. First published in 1968, the collection was critically praised as one of the “best prose written in this country.”

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.45 x 1.05 x 8.2 inchesĬelebrated, iconic, and indispensable, Joan Didion’s first work of nonfiction, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is considered a watershed moment in American writing.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux First edition (October 28, 2008).

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