RIP Joan Didion

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R.I.P. Joan Didion, author, essayist, literary giant

Joan Didion, the master of melancholy novels, essays, and screenplays, has died. Her works, including Play It As It Lays, The Year Of Magical Thinking, and Slouching Toward Bethlehem, inspired generations of readers and spoke to a feeling of sadness and disappointment so profound it spawned an archetype: The Didion Woman. An executive at Didion’s publisher, Knopf, confirmed her death, citing Parkinson’s disease as the cause. She was 87.

I remember reading through some of Slouching Toward Bethlehem but I honestly can't tell you what I thought about her writing. I think her work was important for a time, but probably not mine.