Paris Review - Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1
archive.today webpage capture Saved from history←priornext→ 7 Jan 2026 23:57:54 UTC All snapshots from host www.theparisreview.org WebpageScreenshot sharedownload .zipreport bug or abuseBuy me a coffee ADVERTISEMENT The Paris Review THE DAILY THE QUARTERLY AUTHORS AUDIO ABOUT EVENTS DONATE NEWSLETTERS STORE SIGN IN SUBSCRIBE Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1 Interviewed by Hilton Als ISSUE 176, SPRING 2006 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