The White Album [Paperback]

Joan Didion (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1990

First published in 1979, The White Album is a mosaic of the late sixties and seventies. It includes, among other bizarre artifacts and personalities, the dark journeys and impulses of the Manson family, a Balck Panther Party press conference, the story of John Paul Getty's museum, the romance of water in an arid landscape, and the swirl and confusion of the sixties. With commanding sureness of mood and language, Joan Didion exposes the realities and dreams of that age of self-discovery whose spiritual center was California.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"All of the essays manifest not only [Didion's] intelligence but an instinct for details that continue to emit pulsations in the reader's memory and a style that is spare, subtly musical in its phrasing and exact. Add to these her highly vulnerable sense of herself, and the result is a voice like no other in contemporary journalism."--Robert Towers, The New York Times Book Review

"Didion manges to make the sorry stuff of troubled times (bike movies, for instance, and Bishop James Pike) as interesting and suggestive as the monuments that win her dazzled admiration (Georgia O'Keeffe, the Hoover Dam, the mountains around Bogota) . . . A timely and elegant collection."--The New Yorker

"Didion is an original journalistic talent who can strike at the heart, or the absurdity, of a matter in our contemporary wasteland with quick, graceful strokes."--The San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Joan Didion is the author of five novels and six works of nonfiction: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Miami, Salvador, After Henry, and Political Fictions. She lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374522219
• ISBN-13: 978-0374522216
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #193,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joan Didion was born in California and lives in New York City. She is the author of five novels and seven previous books of nonfiction. Joan Didion's Where I Was From, Political Fictions, The Last Thing He Wanted, After Henry, Miami, Democracy, Salvador, A Book of Common Prayer, and Run River are available in Vintage paperback.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great follow-up to her earlier work, December 7, 2001

By 

John Anderson (Bar Harbor, ME USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The White Album (Paperback)

This book is definitely the "Part 2" of a series that begoins with Didion's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" and each time that i return to it I feel like I am sitting down with a dear friend that I haven't talked to in a while. Other reviewers seem to have covered the title piece quite well, but I am intrigued that nobody seems to have mentioned my favorite -"Holy Water"- a fascinating look behind the scenes at the California Water Authority. I assign this essay again and again to my environmentalist students, both for the immediate content and for the intriguing window into the seductive nature of technology -one feels that Didion comes to be horrified and walks away enthralled. You will be too.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Many mornings after the 60s, May 1, 2001

By 

R. Walker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The White Album (Paperback)

The White Album was published in 1979, and most of the material here is from the 1970s. Even so, the book is at least as much about the 1960s as is Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Like that book, this is a collection of essays from various publications, plus some previously unpublished material. It's a mixed bag. The title piece is quite strong, as is "On The Morning After The Sixties," proving, perhaps, that the 1960s really were Didion's one true subject. There's other good stuff here, too, and the book is actually sort of underrated, since so many observers rate it a poor second to Slouching Towards Bethlehem. But the Didion style is actually quite strong in this volume, sharply observed, carefully written, personal without being confessional, and always flirting with detachment but not quite achieving it. Obviously some people just can't stand Didion's essays, and this book would hardly change their mind; but if you're open to her style, this is worth reading.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Guide Through the Sixties, November 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The White Album (Paperback)

Didion is a master of prose and arresting journalism. Like Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night, she places herself within the action, identifying her place in historical events. She recounts the 60s, and its epicenter, California (especially Los Angeles), with precise lucidity--Didion was there, and DOES remember the 60s. Some of the most intruiging essays are those that serve as memoirs for her time and place--waiting with the Doors for Jim Morrison to show up for a recording session, travelling through Bogota, exploring California's water systems. Required reading for Angelenos.