“It had rained in Los Angeles until the cliff was tumbling into the surf.” This is but one small world of the 1960s that Joan Didion saw in a grain of sand. In this class we will discover or rediscover more of Joan Didion’s take on the 1960s including descriptions of Haight-Ashbury, Joan Baez, John Wayne, and a life on the Sacramento River, as well as her reflections on her own thinking and writing. We will explore two books Didion wrote in the 1960s, the novel Run River and the collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
Suggested Reading: Run River, Joan Didion, Vintage Books and Slouching Towards Bethlehem, multiple publishers