Notes to Joan
I recently decided that Joan Didion is one of the greatest American authors of all time. The irony is
that the rest of the world determined that years ago.
I should probably feel ashamed that I only recently picked up my first Joan Didion book. In fact, in all my years as a writer and English major, I had only one prior, blurry memory of encounters with Joan. It was at a small bookstore in Gainesville, Florida, where I saw her novel, I Write to Find Out What I Am Thinking: Collected Non Fiction (2025). The cover is a black and white image of a woman with short dark hair, leaning over the edge of a balcony, with a cigarette perched in her delicate hand, and a slight smirk dancing across a delicate face. The woman in the photos is undeniably quiet, and yet, through her eyes, you can see how she understands the whole world.
I think what I love about Joan is that she simply reports. She doesn't have a glaring agenda or an obsession with originality that shows through haughty language and complex strings of words. She just writes what she thinks, simple and clear, even when she doesn't know what she is thinking. It is one thing to examine how Joan feels, and another to examine how Joan thinks. And in her volumes of work, lists of bestsellers, pages and pages of writing, there is an unmistakable distance between her and the rest of the world. Everyone knows Joan, and yet, it seems impossible for anyone to know Joan.
In Notes to John (2025), Joan's notes from her therapy sessions are articulated in careful entries. She speaks to her husband, John, but she still does so with a measured tone, so personal, and yet, she never seems to come undone. This is undoubtably an odd first Joan Didion read, but it was the first book of hers that ever landed in my hands. My grandma gave it to me on Christmas - not for Christmas , but on Christmas. For Christmas, every family member received a matching first aid kit to keep in our cars. But on Christmas, she also gave me this book.
The book had come from Coa's, our favorite second-hand bookstore in Las Cruces, NM. This book, however, was a brand new hardcover without even a smudge of grease from the cashier's hands. Regrettably, the book went on a subsequent road trip with me to Tucson, then Phoenix, and finally, Idaho, where I put some wear and tear in its paper cover immediately. I accidentally ripped the top left corner of the front cover, putting a tear in Joan's office curtains. She scowled at me with her arms crossed from the front cover. The book didn't look particularly interesting, and as it dives straight into her notes from therapy sessions, often working through a strained relationship with her daughter, it wasn't thrilling by any means.
But just Joan recorded the minutes from one session to the next, something indescribably alluring kept me turning pages, looking up photos of her family, and slowly wading into the waters of Joan Didion's life and circle. I learned about her marriage with John Dunne, her strained and yet dependent relationship with her daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, and her life as a writer between California and New York. For leading a life of intrigue, oversized dark sunglasses, and vibrant stories, Joan never seemed to react, come apart at the scenes, let a secret loose, jump for joy, or raise her voice louder than a mouse. And yet, there was a sharp intelligence that oozed from her very presence and melted its way into everything she wrote.
Joan didn't get emotional. She just wrote. Writing was her job, and that was that.
Reading Joan's words take me back in time - no, not time, in ideology. They remind me the power of slow presence and dedicated craftsmanship. They are deliberate and substantial, like each pearl falling off of a necklace. In a world where we talk too much, listen on double-speed, and produce produce produce, there is still Joan, who reports.
I see Joan in the reasons I fell in love with writing. That calm drop of each word onto paper, that simple straight line of text that you write before you know what it will say. Joan seems to present herself flawlessly on paper, talking about disorder and horror in the same careful way as she might describe pulling a Coke from the fridge. My own words often feel fragmented and frenetic, blurring the truth and releasing the feelings inside of me without bringing me any closer to a sort of truth. I feel that Joan lived closer to the truth of the way things are than so many of us will ever know.
She writes to find out what she thinks, and through that, leads the rest of us, too. Each sentence, so simple and intentional that I find myself tripping over what is left unsaid. Reading it twice, pausing to think, then reading it again.
I think what sits so deeply in my core is that she doesn't make up stories or fabricate reality, and yet, her work is riveting. The story is there and she is simply the witness. There isn't a penname or a grand reveal or any sort of gimmick. No magic pulled out of a hat, just a woman and her words. I forget how powerful it is to be just a woman with her words.
There. It isn't long, but those are my first notes to Joan. A sense of clarity, even in the darkness. And that is Joan Didion, whose voice I only just heard, and whose words I will keep in my heart.