In a 1939 essay, the critic Philip Rahv argued that there have been two main types in American literature: the solemn and semi-clerical, which he associates with Henry James, and the exuberant, ...

It happens maybe once in a writer’s life, if it happens at all: A narrative path is established, and then without warning, it swerves in a new direction that feels like a gift. This is how Lili Anolik ...

“Most of us have a Joan Didion origin story, the article or book, or photograph or quote that first made us want to know more about this quiet oracle,” Evelyn McDonell begins. She mentions one of an ...

She wrote in her third novel, A Book of Common Prayer, published in1977: “The consciousness of the human organism is carried in its grammar.” It has always been her style, her grammar, coupled with ...

Joan Didion leans against her Corvette Stingray, a cigarette perched between her fingers. Her unsparing, unsmiling gaze seems to sear through the lens of photographer Julian Wasser’s camera, and one ...

An entire generation of literary-minded women has not stopped telling itself stories influenced by master storyteller Joan Didion. The same, alas, cannot be said of Eve Babitz, a Hollywood bad girl ...

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times. Readers can decide when “Notes to John,” which shows the writer grappling with guilt and vulnerability, is published next week. By ...

The much anticipated, first-ever sale of personal effects from famed, late writer Joan Didion’s estate concluded today with Hudson-based Stair Galleries, whose live auctioneers fielded bids from both ...

Sunshine, palm trees, and traffic — Los Angeles is the set for America’s dream of itself as flirty and fun. That Hollywood’s sensibility has been felt on the page as well as the silver screen is owed ...

Following the blockbuster auction of Joan Didion’s estate in November, one large piece of the beloved author’s holdings remained unaccounted for. What was to become of her Upper East Side apartment, ...