Where I Was From Book Cover

Where I Was From


A work of Non-fiction


Subgenres:

  • Memoir,
  • California,
  • Essays
Buy from Amazon

Read Sample

This book is for you if you're into...

  • California mythmaking dissected with memoir, history, and sharp critique
  • Deep dives into the contradictions of self-reliance and state power
  • Personal essays that interrogate family legacy and regional identity
Publisher Description

From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking: In this "arresting amalgam of memoir and historical timeline," 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.

More Joan Didion

Follow This Author

Sign up & we'll email you when a new title is available for pre-order or hits the bookshelf

Get Free & Discounted eBooks

Curated reads, irresistible prices—subscribe now

Add this book to your To Be Read list

Sign up to build your personal library

Archive This Book

Sign up to build your personal library