Paris Review - The Art of Nonfiction No. 1
The last time this magazine spoke with Joan Didion, in August of 1977, she was living in California and had just published her third novel, A Book of Common Prayer. Didion was forty-two years old and well-known not only for her fiction but also for her work in magazines—reviews, reportage, and essays—some of which had been collected in Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968). In addition, Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne (who was himself the subject of a Paris Review interview in 1996), had written a number of screenplays together, including The Panic in Needle Park (1971); an adaptation of her second novel, Play It As It Lays (1972); and A Star Is Born (1976). When Didion’s first interview appeared in these pages in 1978, she was intent on exploring her gift for fiction and nonfiction. Since then, her breadth and craft as a writer have only grown deeper with each project. Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, and both her parents, too, were native Californians. She studied English
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