Forget East Coast Cool—Joan Didion Was a California Woman

Forget East Coast Cool—Joan Didion Was a California Woman

An excerpt of The World According to Joan Didion, by Evelyn McDonnell, out July 29: In a little-known 1978 speech, Joan Didion wrestled with the meaning of womanhood, feminism and identity in her home state of California. Didion wrote, “I realized that I have been writing about the California woman all my adult life, that what it means to be a California woman has been a great question to me—the California woman has been—if not exactly my subjec…