10 Intriguing Insights About Joan Didion

From the 1960s through her passing in December 2021, Joan Didion emerged as one of the most insightful commentators and chroniclers of modern American society. Her work spanned San Francisco’s counterculture movement to the political climate of the late 1990s, blending journalism with novels, memoirs, and screenplays. Discover more about the woman who famously wrote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

1. Joan Didion’s lineage traces back to the Donner party.

Joan Didion was born on December 5, 1934, in Sacramento, California, to Frank Didion, an Army finance officer, and Eduene (née Jerrett), a homemaker who raised Joan and her younger brother, James. Her family had deep roots in California, dating back to the mid-1800s. Her mother’s side, the Cornwalls, were part of the Donner party, a group of settlers who traveled west in 1846 under tragic circumstances. 

The Cornwalls separated from the group at Nevada’s Humboldt Sink, choosing to travel north—a move that likely spared their lives. Meanwhile, the remaining members of the Donner party were trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada that winter; almost half perished, and some survivors resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.

2. At just 5 years old, Joan Didion penned her first story—a dark and somber tale.

Due to her father’s military career, which required frequent relocations, Didion’s consistent formal education didn’t begin until she was in fourth grade. However, her passion for writing sparked at age 5 when her mother handed her a notebook, advising her to “stop whining and learn to amuse myself by writing down my thoughts,” as she recounted in her essay “On Keeping a Notebook.” Her debut story revolved around a woman who believed she was “freezing to death in the Arctic night,” only to discover the next day that she was in the Sahara Desert, “where she would die of the heat before lunch.”

3. She greatly admired Ernest Hemingway and Joseph Conrad.

At around 15 years old, Didion began retyping Ernest Hemingway’s sentences to analyze their structure and brevity. The author of A Farewell to Arms remained one of her most respected influences throughout her life. She also drew inspiration from Henry James, George Eliot, V.S. Naipaul, and Joseph Conrad. In an interview with The Paris Review, she described Conrad’s Victory as “perhaps my favorite book in the world. … I’ve never written [a novel] without rereading Victory.”

4. Her writing career began with a Vogue contest.

During the summer of 1955, prior to her final year at the University of California, Berkeley, Didion worked as a guest fiction editor at Mademoiselle magazine—a role previously held by Sylvia Plath two years earlier, which she later depicted in The Bell Jar. Her career breakthrough occurred in 1956 when she won a Vogue writing competition, securing a full-time copywriting position at the magazine with a weekly salary of $37.50. She began with merchandising and promotional content, eventually advancing to editorial and feature writing. 

Her debut piece, published in August 1961, was somewhat accidental. Vogue had commissioned another writer to craft an essay titled “Self-Respect—Its Source, Its Power,” which was also featured on the front cover. With the printing deadline approaching and the story still unfinished, Didion stepped in to write it. The essay was later included in her 1968 collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem under the title “On Self-Respect.”

5. She once contemplated becoming an oceanographer.

In her early years at Vogue, Didion briefly considered abandoning her challenging writing career to pursue oceanography, a field that fascinated her due to the mysteries of the deep sea. However, after visiting the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, she quickly abandoned the idea. “I realized I lacked the foundational science knowledge and would need to start over from seventh grade. So, I didn’t pursue it,” she explained in a 2006 interview with the Academy of Achievement.

6. Didion disliked the title Run River.

In 1963, Didion released her debut novel, Run River, which explores the turbulent marriage of a California couple culminating in a violent act. The UK version included a comma in the title—Run, River—but Didion “disliked it either way,” as she mentioned in an interview with The Paris Review. Her publisher, Ivan Obolensky, had dismissed her original title, In the Night Season, and proposed Run River instead. When Didion questioned its meaning, he explained it signified that “life goes on.” “That’s not the theme of the book,” she replied.

7. Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, collaborated on screenplays.

Didion’s spouse, John Gregory Dunne, was also a writer, and together they worked on multiple screenplays, beginning with 1971’s The Panic in Needle Park, featuring Al Pacino. Some scripts were adaptations of their own works: 1972’s Play It As It Lays, based on Didion’s 1970 novel, and 1981’s True Confessions, derived from Dunne’s 1977 novel of the same name. Their other screenwriting projects include 1996’s Up Close and Personal, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford, and 1976’s A Star Is Born.

According to Didion, it was Dunne who initially proposed updating A Star Is Born—previously filmed in 1937 and 1954—for the rock ‘n’ roll era. In their pitch to Warner Bros., they used James Taylor and Carly Simon as stand-ins for the lead roles, eventually played by Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand. To prepare for the script, Didion and Dunne spent a summer traveling with bands.

8. Harrison Ford renovated Joan Didion’s home.

Didion will always be linked to Sacramento, her beloved hometown, which she frequently wrote about. However, for much of her adult life, she resided in either New York City or the Los Angeles area. While living in Malibu, Didion and Dunne hired none other than Harrison Ford—who worked as a carpenter before becoming famous as Star Wars’s Han Solo—to renovate and expand their beachfront home. 

The renovation took several months, and Ford humorously recalled in the 2017 documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold that after each workday, he had to justify “why progress was slow and why costs were rising.” The Fords became close with Didion and Dunne, who began inviting them to their annual Easter gatherings. Despite feeling that other guests were “smarter” and “more cultured,” Ford always felt “welcome and comfortable.”

9. Didion had some unique writing habits.

Each morning before writing, Didion would drink a Coca-Cola. (Later in life, she switched to fruit and coffee but still enjoyed a Coke at lunch.) This wasn’t her only peculiarity. While working on Run River, she taped the pages of each scene together into a long strip and hung it on her wall. “Sometimes I’d leave it untouched for months, then pick a scene and rewrite it,” she told The Paris Review. 

Didion also began her day by retyping her previous work to build momentum. When faced with writer’s block, she would place her manuscript in a plastic bag and store it in the freezer, as her editor, Shelley Wanger, shared in the 2017 documentary.

10. Didion’s later years were filled with profound sorrow.

On December 25, 2003, Dunne and Didion’s daughter, Quintana Roo, whom they had adopted in 1966, was hospitalized with the flu, which rapidly escalated into pneumonia. Five days later, Dunne suffered a fatal heart attack. At the time, Quintana was in a coma due to septic shock, prompting Didion to delay the funeral until her daughter regained consciousness. After the funeral, Quintana fell at the airport while traveling to California, requiring surgery for a brain hematoma.

Didion documented this traumatic period in The Year of Magical Thinking, which became one of the most acclaimed memoirs on grief, love, and loss. Quintana’s health remained fragile, and she passed away in 2005, shortly before the book’s release. Didion chose not to revise the memoir, but when adapting it into a one-woman play, director David Hare persuaded her to include details about her daughter’s death. The play premiered on Broadway in March 2007, starring Vanessa Redgrave, a close friend of Didion’s.