Joan Didion: The Western Eyes of a Literary Journalist

Abstract

Most of the critical work regarding Joan Didion revolves around the themes of loss and death and her personal reporting of major events in U.S. history and society since the 1960s. However, little has been said regarding her distinctive Western heritage, which provided her with the ability to see and narrate things with a broader and idiosyncratic perspective. The West and the American frontier, moreover, frequently emerge in some of her most important works, such as Run River and The White Album. After introducing the social, political, historical and cultural factors that affected U.S. society in the decades that followed the second global conflict — and which laid the groundwork for the need of a brand-new and subjective version of journalism — I will shed light on those aspects of her writing style that made Didion distinctively "Western,” and a worldwide renowned “fifth-generation Californian” (Grimes 2021) author.