Review-the-last-love-song-a-biography-of-joan-didion
The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion
November 26,
I'm not % sure why I read this book, which is a fair description of how I felt while I was reading it. I ploughed through it because I borrowed it from the library, and there were holds on it. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had picked it up when the mood struck me.
As many reviewers have pointed out, Joan Didion did not participate in the writing of this biography, nor did any of her close friends or family. The biographer's materials are chiefly Joan Didion's published writing and interviews, her archived papers, reviews of her books, and interviews with old friends, acquaintances, and others tangentially connected with Didion.
Daugherty hews closely to Didion's own account of her life, with the result that this biography often reads like a chronological ordering of Didion's own descriptions of herself and her life. For example, the book makes only passing reference to the death of Didion's father, presumably because Didion hasn't written or spoken about it. That said, I liked revisiting Didion's writing, and the chronological presentation coupled with (limited) additional information puts her writing in the broader context of both her life and her times, but there is not much in this book that a reader of Didion wouldn't already know. What's more, the book is organized in parts and chapters, none of which are named or dated, and it's hard to navigate. I often found myself wondering what year we were in.
A bigger problem is that Didion carefully crafted her public image, and this book reveals very little beyond what she chose to present of herself. There's not much critical distance, especially since Daugherty's "close reading" of Didion's self-presentation consists almost entirely of complimenting her on her craft. Daughtery dismisses any criticism of Didion's writing in a way that's off-putting. His critical evaluation is that her first novel (Run River) was her worst novel and her second last novel (Democracy) was her best. Didion claimed that we understand our world through the stories we tell ourselves. The way Daugherty charts the development of this idea is that, in the s, Didion doubted that the premises of our stories still held, and, by the s, she thought that there were coherent narratives out there, but they're hidden from us. That may be a fair evaluation of Didion, but it merely parrots what she herself already said.
So what's the picture of Didion that emerges? She was an insider who sometimes felt like -- or chose to present herself as -- an outsider. She was connected and wealthy. She was nowhere near as frail as she sometimes made herself seem, but she often was felled by migraines and breakdowns. Her marriage was conflicted, but she and her husband supported each other in nearly everything. They were not exactly absent parents, but not totally present either. She was conservative in her youth, and merely disillusioned in her maturity. Above all, she was one of the most important American writers of the second half of the 20th century. Regarding this last point though, Daughtery is preaching to the choir; he will not convert the unconvinced.
Although this biography often feels redundant, I'm reluctant to give it a low rating because it is thoughtful and thorough, given what the biographer had to work with. If you've already read a good chunk of Joan Didion, there isn't much here that you don't already know. I wish that there was either more critical analysis of her writing (less hagiography) or more new information.
As many reviewers have pointed out, Joan Didion did not participate in the writing of this biography, nor did any of her close friends or family. The biographer's materials are chiefly Joan Didion's published writing and interviews, her archived papers, reviews of her books, and interviews with old friends, acquaintances, and others tangentially connected with Didion.
Daugherty hews closely to Didion's own account of her life, with the result that this biography often reads like a chronological ordering of Didion's own descriptions of herself and her life. For example, the book makes only passing reference to the death of Didion's father, presumably because Didion hasn't written or spoken about it. That said, I liked revisiting Didion's writing, and the chronological presentation coupled with (limited) additional information puts her writing in the broader context of both her life and her times, but there is not much in this book that a reader of Didion wouldn't already know. What's more, the book is organized in parts and chapters, none of which are named or dated, and it's hard to navigate. I often found myself wondering what year we were in.
A bigger problem is that Didion carefully crafted her public image, and this book reveals very little beyond what she chose to present of herself. There's not much critical distance, especially since Daugherty's "close reading" of Didion's self-presentation consists almost entirely of complimenting her on her craft. Daughtery dismisses any criticism of Didion's writing in a way that's off-putting. His critical evaluation is that her first novel (Run River) was her worst novel and her second last novel (Democracy) was her best. Didion claimed that we understand our world through the stories we tell ourselves. The way Daugherty charts the development of this idea is that, in the s, Didion doubted that the premises of our stories still held, and, by the s, she thought that there were coherent narratives out there, but they're hidden from us. That may be a fair evaluation of Didion, but it merely parrots what she herself already said.
So what's the picture of Didion that emerges? She was an insider who sometimes felt like -- or chose to present herself as -- an outsider. She was connected and wealthy. She was nowhere near as frail as she sometimes made herself seem, but she often was felled by migraines and breakdowns. Her marriage was conflicted, but she and her husband supported each other in nearly everything. They were not exactly absent parents, but not totally present either. She was conservative in her youth, and merely disillusioned in her maturity. Above all, she was one of the most important American writers of the second half of the 20th century. Regarding this last point though, Daughtery is preaching to the choir; he will not convert the unconvinced.
Although this biography often feels redundant, I'm reluctant to give it a low rating because it is thoughtful and thorough, given what the biographer had to work with. If you've already read a good chunk of Joan Didion, there isn't much here that you don't already know. I wish that there was either more critical analysis of her writing (less hagiography) or more new information.