LETTERS: Two Typed letters signed, to Buzz Farber.
Letters to a Friend
Didion, Joan. Typed letter signed to “Bernard” [ ]; November 28, 1964; one leaf of stationery; recto only.
Together with:
Didion, Joan. Typed letter signed to “Bernard” [ ]; May 2, 1965; one leaf of stationery; recto only.
Two warm letters from Didion to Farber, discussing her work, health, mutual friends, travel schedules and possible visits. In her first letter, Didion thanks Farber for his compliments about one of her stories, and she shares her thoughts on it; she does not mention the title, but it likely ran in a periodical:
Actually I thought that story came out pretty well too, although I was terrified of it because it was in first person which I find hard to carry off right. Also (a secret) I felt a little remiss doing it in answer to a (guaranteed) request for a story about children, since I knew that never at any price could I really write a story about children. I don’t even like stories about children, on the whole. I mean they’re so often self-indulgent (the stories, not the children).
Didion goes on to say that she will send another story soon, but she has to finish two other stories she was working on first; a piece on Helen Gurley Brown for the Post and an article on Sacramento for Holiday. She explains, “Both are nearly finished but they are like albatrosses. They are even like Ancient Mariners.”
In her next letter, sent six months later, Didion apologizes for a delay in writing due to an eye ailment (“There were a lot of colorful hypotheses, my favourite of which was arsenic poisoning”). She explains that she is having trouble with a novel and shares, “if I can get some intensive work done on it I’ll be in the clear with it.” In her final paragraph, she shares travel plans and invites Bernard to come out for a visit.
Didion (born 1934) is a novelist, essayist and screenwriter. After graduating from UC Berkeley and winning an essay contest sponsored by Mademoiselle, Didion worked at Vogue. She published her first novel Run, River (1963) and then married the writer John Gregory Dunne and moved to California. They adopted a daughter, Quintana Roo.
Her fictional works include Play It As it Lays (1970), A Book of Common Prayer (1977), and Democracy (1984). Non-fiction pieces include her triumph of New Journalism, Slouching Toward Bethelem (1968), The White Album (1979), After Henry (1992), and The Year of Magical Thinking (2005). Magical Thinking was also adapted into a one-woman play, starring Vanessa Redgrave. Didion also wrote screenplays for The Panic in Nedle Park (1971), A Star is Born (1976), and Up Close and Personal (1996).
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