We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine

New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion's cultural influence through the lens of American mythmaking in Hollywood.

With bylines spanning six decades, Joan Didion's legacy towers over the landscape of American letters. Although she launched her career in New York City, she soon struck out for Los Angeles, where the nation's dreams were manufactured?and every aspect of her work reflected what she saw there, whether she was writing on politics, society, or herself. In this riveting cultural biography, Wilkinson takes a fresh perspective on Didion's career as a novelist, critic, and screenwriter deeply embroiled in the grit and glamour of Hollywood. In eloquent prose, she charts how Didion became intimately acquainted with power players of the Los Angeles elite, arriving in the twilight of the old studio system in time to see lines between the industry and public life blur. Peering through a scrim of celluloid, Wilkinson incisively dissects the motifs and machinations that informed Didion's writing?and how her writing, ultimately, demonstrated Hollywood's addictive grasp on American identity.