Friday, February 28, 2020

SLOUCHING TOWARDS LOS ANGELES :: Steffie Nelson

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Joan Didion has long been a symbol of literary and cultural cool. Marked by a pervasive sense of place, particularly her native California, Didion's writing created what style and culture writer Steffie Nelson felt as a "visceral pull" to Los Angeles. Nelson, former editor-in-chief of Pasadena magazine, further sensed Didion's impact while organizing a literary event examining the "promise of the West." Conversations with other writers "who had also migrated to the City of Angels with their creased copies of Slouching Towards Bethlehem" (Didion's 1968 collection of pieces on California counterculture) buttressed Nelson's belief that "every writer in Los Angeles probably had something to say about Joan Didion." She has now gathered them together to say it.

Slouching Towards Los Angeles contains 25 essays by writers, editors and journalists, 20 of whom are women, "a ratio [Didion] helped make possible." Wide-ranging in subject, "perhaps even a little schizophrenic," these entries speak to the influence Didion's multi-faceted legacy had on each author's personal encounters with the Western United States. Whether contemplating a particular Didion essay, a public interaction, a lesson learned, an architectural marvel, an iconic photograph or a '60s benchmark (the Manson murders make multiple appearances), the pieces reflect Didion's depth of substance and unflappability.

Didion enthusiasts will experience themes through sharp and clever new lenses. Newcomers to the canon will likely be moved to acquaint themselves. Nelson's "love letter and thank you note, personal memoir and social commentary, cultural history and literary critique" is an eccentric trip through Didion's California.

No comments:

About Malcolm Avenue Review

I was lucky enough to be born and raised in a nifty, oak-shaded ranch house on Malcolm Avenue, a wide-laned residential street with little through traffic, located amid the foothills of Northern California. It was on that street and in that house I learned most of my adolescent life lessons, and many grown-up ones to boot. Malcolm Avenue was "home" for more than thirty years.

It was on Malcolm Avenue, through and with my family and the other families that made up our neighborhood of characters, that I first learned about and gained an appreciation for the things I continue to love the most to this day: music, animals, photography, sports, television/movies and, of course, books.

I owe a debt of gratitude to that life on Malcolm Avenue. It gave me a sense of community and friendship, support and adventure. For better and worse, life on that street likely had the biggest impact on the person I've become. So this blog, and the things I write here, are all, at their base level, a little bit of a love letter to Malcolm Avenue.

Labels

  © Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP