writers

From the desk of… Joan Didion



Joan Didion auction

Everyone’s talking about Joan Didion’s stuff.

The late writer’s personal effects are going up for auction at Stair Galleries this month and as is usual these days, there’s a forensic unpicking of the icon’s possessions as an insight into her mind and creative genius.

As a writer she was lauded for her minimalist prose and sharp cultural observations. As a woman she was admired for her self-assured independence and also a cool aloofness. That enigmatic quality no doubt adds to the interest in her possessions; a promised glimpse of ‘the real Joan Didion’. As Rachel Tashjian observes in Harper’s Bazaar, these vignettes present the “warmest portraits ever painted of her”. (more…)