Where I was from

Didion's remarkable family history parallels that of the U.S. in its journey west, belief in starting over, and enduring stoicism. Her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Scott, was born in 1766 and left what became Virginia for Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Missouri Territory. Elizabeth's granddaughter traveled deep into the western frontier with the infamous Donner-Reed party, and others made it to the promised land of California, where Didion was born and raised. Her homeland has always influenced her work, but now in the wake of her parents' deaths, she sees her native land with startlingly fresh and revelatory clarity. As always, Didion is scrupulous in her research, discerning in her observations, and eloquent as she scours the outer world for keys to inner conflicts, and, consequently, her insights into California's psyche are perspicacious and arresting. A land seemingly dedicated to personal freedom, it is in fact a state saddled with an inordinate number of prisons, a debilitating dependence on the federal government, and an extraordinarily high incidence of mental instability. As Didion uncovers sharp memories and incisively interprets California's messy politics and dire economics, she not only creates an electrifying inquiry into the spirit of a unique place and the soul of an uncommon family but also illuminates with piercing candor the dark side of the pioneer mythos, the very heart of the American mystique. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2003 Booklist

California comes under Didion's captivating, merciless microscope in her controversial look at the greed, acquisitiveness and wasteful extravagance lurking beneath the state's eternal sunshine. In admirably lean, piercing prose, she describes her ancestors, women who could shoot, handle stock and shake snakes from their boots every morning. These pioneers had lived through an arduous crossing far removed from the noble odysseys chronicled by California mythmakers and arrived in wrecked wagons, facing desolation and death. Didion dramatically highlights the gap between California's rosy notion of itself as a land that stood for individual entrepreneurship, and the reality of growing government control and reliance on federal money. As a Sacramento native now living in New York, she conveys the tension of loving an area that's also disappointed her. She utilizes the 1993 Spur Posse scandal, in which teenage boys in Southern California slept with as many girls as possible and then regarded them as notches on their gun, to portray the spiritual vacancy of young Californian men, particularly in light of an overindulgent public attitude that downplayed their moral callousness. Didion cites cozy, pastel paintings by artists like Thomas Kinkade as contributing to the hazily romantic view of a state that treated foreigners early in its history with vicious bigotry, underrated education's importance and committed disturbed citizens to institutions on unacceptably flimsy evidence of their mental state. Throughout, Didion digs deep to find the "point" of California. Many will find her conclusions inflammatory and may rise to California's defense, but the book is a remarkable document precisely because of its power to trigger a national debate that can heighten awareness and improve conditions on the West Coast and throughout the country. (Sept. 29) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Didion's American saga, from the birth of an ancestor in 1760s Virginia to her mother's death in 2001. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

With humor, history, nostalgia, and acerbity, Didion (Political Fictions, 2001, etc.) considers the conundrums of California, her beloved home state. Pieces of this remarkable memoir have appeared in the writer's usual venues (e.g., the New York Review of Books), but she has crafted the connections among them so artfully that the work acquires a surprising cumulative power. Didion tells a number of stories that would not in lesser hands appear to be related: the arrival in California of her pioneer ancestors, the nasty 1993 episode involving randy adolescents who called themselves the "Spur Posse," the fall of the aerospace industry in the 1990s, her 1948 eighth-grade graduation speech ("Our California Heritage"), the history of the state, and the death of her parents. Along the way she deals with some California novels from earlier days, Jack London's The Valley of the Moon and Frank Norris's The Octopus, and explores the community histories of Hollister, Irvine, and Lakewood (home of the Posse). She sees fundamental contradictions in the California dream. For one, older generations resented the arrival of the "newcomers," who in their minds were spoiling the view. But as Didion points out, the old-timers had once done the same. More profound is her recognition that Californians, many of whom embrace the ideal of rugged individualism and reject "government interference," nonetheless have accepted from the feds sums of money vast enough to mesmerize Midas. Water-management programs have been especially costly, but tax breaks for all sorts of other industries and enterprises have greatly enriched some in the state (railroad magnates, housing developers, defense contractors) while most everyone else battles for scraps beneath the table. Most affecting are her horrifying portrait of Lakewood as a community devoted to high-school sports at the expense of scholarship and her wrenching accounts of the deaths of her father and mother. Demonstrates how very thin is the gilt on the Golden State. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Didion's remarkable family history parallels that of the U.S. in its journey west, belief in starting over, and enduring stoicism. Her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Scott, was born in 1766 and left what became Virginia for Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Missouri Territory. Elizabeth's granddaughter traveled deep into the western frontier with the infamous Donner-Reed party, and others made it to the promised land of California, where Didion was born and raised. Her homeland has always influenced her work, but now in the wake of her parents' deaths, she sees her native land with startlingly fresh and revelatory clarity. As always, Didion is scrupulous in her research, discerning in her observations, and eloquent as she scours the outer world for keys to inner conflicts, and, consequently, her insights into California's psyche are perspicacious and arresting. A land seemingly dedicated to personal freedom, it is in fact a state saddled with an inordinate number of prisons, a debilitating dependence on the federal government, and an extraordinarily high incidence of mental instability. As Didion uncovers sharp memories and incisively interprets California's messy politics and dire economics, she not only creates an electrifying inquiry into the spirit of a unique place and the soul of an uncommon family but also illuminates with piercing candor the dark side of the pioneer mythos, the very heart of the American mystique. ((Reviewed July 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews

Didion's American saga, from the birth of an ancestor in 1760s Virginia to her mother's death in 2001. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

The latest from Didion is a complex and challenging memoir, difficult to enter into but just as difficult to put down. It manifests Didion's continued interest in social disorder and unrest, the "telling detail," and how the personal and the social intertwine. On one level, this is a very personal story of Didion's family's history that starts with the birth of her great-times-five grandmother on the Virginia frontier in 1766. On another, it is a critique of American ideals of independence and the story of how the settling of California-and the character of the original settlers-led inexorably to the California of today. Didion is an acclaimed novelist, screenwriter, and journalist who has written numerous articles, essays, and reviews. Those who have long admired the clarity and precision of her prose will not be disappointed with this partly autobiographical, partly historical, but fully engrossing account. Suitable for academic libraries and most public libraries, this is of particular interest to genealogists and American history collectors and is essential for libraries in California. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/03.]-Terren Ilana Wein, Univ. of Chicago Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

California comes under Didion's captivating, merciless microscope in her controversial look at the greed, acquisitiveness and wasteful extravagance lurking beneath the state's eternal sunshine. In admirably lean, piercing prose, she describes her ancestors, women who could shoot, handle stock and shake snakes from their boots every morning. These pioneers had lived through an arduous crossing far removed from the noble odysseys chronicled by California mythmakers and arrived in wrecked wagons, facing desolation and death. Didion dramatically highlights the gap between California's rosy notion of itself as a land that stood for individual entrepreneurship, and the reality of growing government control and reliance on federal money. As a Sacramento native now living in New York, she conveys the tension of loving an area that's also disappointed her. She utilizes the 1993 Spur Posse scandal, in which teenage boys in Southern California slept with as many girls as possible and then regarded them as notches on their gun, to portray the spiritual vacancy of young Californian men, particularly in light of an overindulgent public attitude that downplayed their moral callousness. Didion cites cozy, pastel paintings by artists like Thomas Kinkade as contributing to the hazily romantic view of a state that treated foreigners early in its history with vicious bigotry, underrated education's importance and committed disturbed citizens to institutions on unacceptably flimsy evidence of their mental state. Throughout, Didion digs deep to find the "point" of California. Many will find her conclusions inflammatory and may rise to California's defense, but the book is a remarkable document precisely because of its power to trigger a national debate that can heighten awareness and improve conditions on the West Coast and throughout the country. (Sept. 29) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.