Tracy Daugherty's new book is The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion.From his Q & A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: Why did you decide to write a biography of Joan Didion?--Marshal Zeringue
A: I first read Joan Didion in 1978. I was 23, and wanted to be a writer, though I had no ambition then of becoming a biographer.
I was a Beatles fan and probably bought Didion's essay collection, The White Album, because of its Beatle-esque title and the promise on the jacket flap that this book perfectly captured the spirit of the 1960s.
And sure enough, the title essay seemed to me to embody the spirit of the decade that had shaped my young sensibilities.
Its fragmented, collage-like structure was a revelation--not only because I didn't know you could write like that (all those white spaces! all those silences!) but because it showed me...[read on]