Bibliograph

Slouching towards Bethlehem, essays, Joan Didion

Type

Label

Slouching towards Bethlehem, essays, Joan Didion

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

essays

Main title

Slouching towards Bethlehem

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Oclc number

978689044

Responsibility statement

Joan Didion

Sub title

essays

Summary

The "dazzling" and essential portrayal of 1960s America from the author of South and West and The Year of Magical Thinking (The New York Times). Capturing the tumultuous landscape of the United States, and in particular California, during a pivotal era of social change, the first work of nonfiction from one of American literature's most distinctive prose stylists is a modern classic. In twenty razor-sharp essays that redefined the art of journalism, National Book Award-winning author Joan Didion reports on a society gripped by a deep generational divide, from the "misplaced children" dropping acid in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district to Hollywood legend John Wayne filming his first picture after a bout with cancer. She paints indelible portraits of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes and folk singer Joan Baez, "a personality before she was entirely a person," and takes readers on eye-opening journeys to Death Valley, Hawaii, and Las Vegas, "the most extreme and allegorical of American settlements." First published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has been heralded by the New York Times Book Review as "a rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country" and named to Time magazine's list of the one hundred best and most influential nonfiction books. It is the definitive account of a terrifying and transformative decade in American history whose discordant reverberations continue to sound a half-century later

Table Of Contents

Title Page; Contents; A Preface; I LIFE STYLES IN THE GOLDEN LAND; Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream; John Wayne: A Love Song; Where the Kissing Never Stops; Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M.-L.); 7000 Romaine, Los Angeles 38; California Dreaming; Marrying Absurd; Slouching Towards Bethlehem; II PERSONALS; On Keeping a Notebook; On Self-Respect; I Can't Get That Monster out of My Mind; On Morality; On Going Home; III SEVEN PLACES OF THE MIND; Notes from a Native Daughter; Letter from Paradise, 21ʻ 19' N., 157ʻ 52' W; Rock of Ages; The Seacoast of Despair; Guaymas, Sonora; Los Angeles NotebookGoodbye to All ThatAcknowledgments; About the Author; Also by Joan Didion; Copyright

Classification