Review of Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Didion’s clear and poignant reportage is always thrilling.

Here, perhaps, her most famous pieces evoke a now-distant time when America was defined by resistance to war, and droves were trying out the Hippie lifestyle, spawning great protest music and a whole body of literature.

Ranging from California, to New York, to Mexico, to Hawaii, the people and places she meets – Joan Baez, drug dealers, drug users, prostitutes, veterans, and people who can only be distinguished by their ordinariness – all illustrate telling portraits of America, a turmoil-ridden land of discontents and maladjusted politicos, and rife with small-time artists and big-name stars.

Investigating murders, the real John Wayne, and sliding through the early Hollywood aesthetic seamlessly, the gritty streets and crooked signs, and sunlight bleached mansions, Didion guides the reader along a tour through a complicated country with irresistible prose.

In this place of constant conflict, the 60s became a memorable era, where America’s growing pains threatened to divide its culture. This era, which for some people still lurks in memory, is composed entirely of imagery from films and books for me, but there is probably no better place to go for a glimpse of the world at that time than Didion’s crystalline viewpoint. Her intellectual rigor and interest in what constitutes the heart of her country offer a gorgeous look at profound truths.