Lynn Barber

Joan Didion deserves better 

The great American writer is ill-served by this new biography – but luckily we still have her own writing to tell us who she truly was

Joan Didion and her husband, John Dunne, at home in Malibu in 1977. [Alamy] 
issue 23 September 2023

This book is an example of a regrettable new trend – the solipsistic biography. I mean lives of famous people written by unfamous people (usually women) who want to tell you a LOT about themselves. This one is about the writer Joan Didion by an academic called Evelyn McDonnell who never met Didion but believes that they had much in common.

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