“We all survive more than we think we can. We imagine things — that we wouldn’t be able to survive, but in fact, we do survive. … We have no choice, so we do it.”
Joan Didion is known as much for her fiction as her non- fiction. Writing her first novel Run River in 1963, Didion expressed a view of modern American life on the West Coast that was fractured, hurt, and fearful. Her fiction continues on in this vein, largely focusing on a central female character.
Much of Didion’s non-fiction also deals with life on the West Coast. Her books are personal essays, told in a narrative style similar to that of New Journalism. The Year of Magical Thinking is one of Didion’s best known works, having received the National Book Award in 2005. It deals with her personal tragedies of losing both her husband and daughter in the same year. Didion is a powerful writer and a strong voice for the modern woman.