Where I Was From
Ratings5
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings5
Average rating4.2
From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking: In this "arresting amalgam of memoir and historical timeline” (The Baltimore Sun), Didion—a native Californian—reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history, and ours. Didion applies her scalpel-like intelligence to California's ethic of ruthless self-sufficiency in order to examine that ethic’s often tenuous relationship to reality. Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, Where I Was From explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons. Whether she is writing about her pioneer ancestors or privileged sexual predators, robber barons or writers (not excluding herself), Didion is an unparalleled observer, and this book is at once intellectually provocative and deeply personal.
Reviews with the most likes.
I found the topic of this book, and Didion's reporting on it, very interesting. I thought the part where she discusses her own book within it was a little confusing and unnecessary, although maybe if I had read the book I would be more understanding. Generally really solid.
