The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Joan Didion has died at the age of 87 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, Penguin Random House/Knopf has confirmed. One of America’s most revered and admired writers, Didion’s legacy includes her influential contributions to the New Journalism movement and the bestselling memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking.
The New Journalism movement, popularized by contemporary Tom Wolfe in the 1960s and ‘70s, sought to communicate facts through narrative storytelling and literary techniques. Didion brought a subjective, personal approach to her journalism and nonfiction, integrating her own feelings, perceptions and memories into her subject matter. Didion was also the author of several works of fiction, including a handful of screenplays co-written with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, for films including A Star Is Born.
Some of her other famous literary works include her earliest nonfiction collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, containing articles and columns Didion had previously published in periodicals that included The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times Magazine and Vogue, among others. Her second novel, Play It As It Lays, brought Didion recognition as a fiction writer and it was later made into a 1972 movie starring Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins.
Didion would go on to win several awards for her work, including a National Book Award for her 2005 memoir of mourning her husband’s passing, The Year of Magical Thinking. She was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in 2013.
Her most recent book, Let Me Tell You What I Mean, was published earlier this year. Read BookTrib’s review here.
RELATED POSTS
Didion Toys with Subjectivity, Transcends Time in “Let Me Tell You What I Mean”
An Excerpt of Joan Didion’s “Play It As It Lays”: Heart of the American Dream
