Literary legend Joan Didion lives on today, taking the news by storm after the New York Public Library acquired archived material by her and her husband, John Dunne, this Thursday.
Joan Didion is potentially the most well-known female author of recent generations, with her most prominent essay collections including Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The White Album. Didion honored the beauty of California life through her unique style of fictitious prose, and she took an intensely personal approach to her writing style. Taking her craft to heart, Didion modeled beautifully realistic heroines. Later in her life, she turned to reporting, using her keen eye for a new medium: politicized fiction and essay-writing.
The likes of Didion will be untouched in skill and creative justice, and she remains one of the most undeniably independent and rich female writers of all time. If you have not yet been introduced to her work, you have been tragically robbed of a brilliantly feminine voice.
In 2021, Didion, 87, tragically passed away from complications emerging from her Parkinsons‘ diagnosis, and the literary world viscerally mourned her. Now, two years later, we are reminded of her outreach and impact.
The New York Public Library finalized the purchase of remaining materials, manuscripts, and scrap work collected by Didion and her equally poignant husband. The archive includes old photos, notes, letters, guest lists, and “other material that traces the individual and collaborative work of one of postwar America’s most productive and glamorous literary couples,” according to the New York Times.
The work collected is said to span the entirety of Didion and Dunne’s lives. While the archive lacks personal diaries, it is said to house correspondence with the couple’s family and friends, a social circle that stretches back to Didion’s time working for Vogue. As is reported by NYT staff, Didion saved her notes used to write Slouching Toward Bethlehem, confessions from the “1989 Central Park jogger incident”, research materials, and, as is to be expected with any writer, fragments from unfinished projects.
More intimately, Didion kept notices she received following the deaths of her husband and daughter, reflecting again her intensely personal and sympathetic nature.
The collection will be processed and available to the public, hopefully, by 2025 so the world might again be reintroduced to Didion’s masterfully poetic voice.