Let Me Tell You What I Mean

November 9, 2020
This wide-ranging essay collection from Didion (South and West: From a Notebook) showcases her strengths as a short form writer. Organized chronologically from 1968 to 2000, the pieces trace Didion’s development as an essayist and offer glimpses of late-20th-century social history. In 1968’s “Alicia and the Underground Press,” Didion writes of “tabloid-sized papers that respect the special interests of the young and the disaffiliated,” praising their ability to speak directly to their readers; “The Long-Distance Runner,” from 1993, is an ode to filmmaker Tony Richardson: “I never knew anyone who so loved to make things,” she writes; and “Everywoman.com,” from 2000, examines the “cultural meaning of Martha Stewart’s success” and the way she “branded herself not as Superwoman but as Everywoman.” As always, the writing is captivating—in the early “Getting Serenity,” she writes about attending a Gamblers Anonymous meeting (“I got out fast then, before anyone could say ‘serenity’ again, for it is a word I associate with death”) and finds just the right details to nail down the feeling of a bygone era—for example, the mix of “plastic hydrangeas” and cigarette smoke at the GA meeting. Didion fans new and old will be delighted.

Kimberly Farr's clear, warm voice and intentional pacing--not too fast, not too slow--are the perfect vehicles for this collection of Joan Didion's early journalism. Farr, who often narrates Didion's work, skillfully delivers the author's tone, which is a mix of bemusement and amusement, irony, empathy, and toughness. The book offers a variety of subjects and writerly approaches, blending essays about such topics as the press and Ernest Hemingway with articles that touch on Martha Stewart and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others. There's also a devastating piece about Nancy Reagan when she was a governor's wife. Nicely, Farr lets Didion's incisive writing speak without verbal embellishment, which allows us to experience her unencumbered judgments, be they compassion, bewilderment, or profound irritation. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine