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Sabrina Romano
Final Essay
14 April 2014
Joan Didion and the New Journalism Movement
In the American psyche, the 1960s are known as a period of radical social movements
and protests. Some of the popular movements of the decade are the Civil Rights Movement, the
Feminist Movement, and the Environmental Movement. Another less popular movement is the
New Journalism Movement which brought journalism and nonfiction writing into a whole new
realm. The movement’s participants, writers, did not protest but focused on creating a new
method of journalism. The participants had a common goal to make nonfiction writing read
similar to creative fiction writing. Writers subscribing to the New Journalism Movement broke
away from the traditional newspaper-style of journalism and switched to longform writing
focused on telling factual, yet captivating stories. Joan Didion, an American journalist, embraced
the transition to this new form of writing. Didion, one of the only women apart of the movement,
engaged the public in politics and culture through this new writing style. Joan Didion is an
outstanding female journalist because she transformed matter-of-fact political and
cultural writing into the narrative-driven and emotional style of new journalism. To transform
rigid and factual writing into the narrative and character-based style of New Journalism, Didion
employed a variety of literary techniques, including long syntax structure, narrative weaving, and
specific details.
Didion’s early life and personal life informed much of her journalism. She frequently
wrote about California, the state she lived for most of her life. Didion was born in Sacramento,
California. She was only gone a handful of times, including a period during World War II when
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she, along with her mother and brother, followed their father, an officer in the Army Air Corps,
as he traveled from post to post. After Didion graduated from the University of California,
Berkeley, she left California for an extended amount of time. During college, she got a job at
Vogue magazine in New York after winning first place in their essay contest. Didion started at
Vogue as a research assistant and worked her way up to a contributing writer. In 1963, while still
in New York, Didion wrote her first novel, Run River. Despite not selling very well, it earned her
a second book contract. Soon after, her successful writing career took off. Before moving back to
her home state of California, Didion married John Gregory Dunne, a Time magazine writer, in
New York in 1964. They moved to Los Angeles, California and planned to stay for only six
months but ended up calling Los Angeles their home for 20 years. In California, they adopted
their only child and named her Quintana Roo.1
To understand Joan Didion and the New Journalism Movement, one must understand its
context: the 1960s. The decade began with Americans feeling hopeful as John F. Kennedy took
office. During this decade, Americans established a new standard for democracy. Many
Americans realized they had the power to make a change and voiced their opinion. The Vietnam
conflict rolled over from the 1950s and intensified into a full-blown war in the middle of the
decade. The Civil Rights Movement gained popularity during the Sixties as thousands of African
Americans protested segregation and unequal rights in the form of marches and sit-ins. In 1964,
President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act which made discrimination illegal.2 African
Americans weren’t the only group organizing for a better future. Through the National
Organization for Women and other women’s liberation groups, women fought for reproductive
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2
"Joan Didion." Academy of Achievement. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2015. <http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/did0bio-1>.
"The 1960s." History, n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. <http://www.history.com/topics/1960s>.
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rights and gender equality.3 The Environmental Movement gained traction after Rachel Carson
authored Silent Spring and influenced legislation.4 Among these movements dealing with the
government and legislation, there existed one movement which focused on storytelling and art:
the New Journalism Movement. For writers, the 1960s, a time when social change was popular,
seemed like the perfect time to revolutionize their craft.
New Journalism began in the 1960s with writers who wanted a style outside of the
traditional and rigid journalism and nonfiction realm to express their ideas. According to
Encyclopedia Britannica, “the genre combined journalistic research with the techniques of fiction
writing in the reporting of stories about real-life events.”5 The interview process in traditional
journalism and new journalism is very similar; in both forms of writing, journalists would
interview their subjects multiple times and spend hours with them. However, the New
Journalism writing style is significantly different from traditional journalism. New journalism
focused on storytelling and engaging the reader. “[New Journalists] constructed well-developed
characters, sustained dialogue, vivid scenes, and strong plotlines marked with dramatic tension.
They also wrote in voices that were distinctly their own.”6 Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Gay
Talese, and Truman Capote were some of the first writers to subscribe to the fiction-like writing
style. Unlike other movements occurring in the 1960s, writers did not necessarily gather and plot
their plan to create a new style of journalism. Instead, the genre became more common as
3
Napikoski, Linda. "1960s Feminist Activities." About Education, n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2015.
<http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/tp/1960s_feminist_activities.htm>.
4 Koch, Wendy. "Carson's 'Silent Spring' spurred environmental movement." USA Today 27 Sept. 2012. Web. 8 Apr. 2015.
<http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012/09/27/carsons-silent-spring-spurred-environmentalmovement/57845706/1>.
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Fakazis, Liz. Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/411713/NewJournalism>.
6
Fakazis, Liz. Encyclopedia Britannica.
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magazines like New York and Esquire published articles in the New Journalism style.7 New
Journalists also published their work in anthologies or their own books.8 Didion, one of the only
females associated with the beginning of the New Journalism Movement, achieved large literary
success publishing her New Journalism writing.
Didion used the new journalism style to write about politics in an engaging and less
matter-of-fact way. California in the mid-1960s is the subject for some of her most-prized
journalism. In “California Dreaming,” a piece in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Didion explores
The Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions’ politics and rhetoric. In this piece, Didion
writes from the perspective of an expert on the Center and employs a long syntax structure.
“What these highly skilled public-relations experts do, besides clarifying the basic issues and
giving a lift to Bennett Cerf…is to gather every weekday for a few hours of discussion, usually
about one of several broad areas that the Center is concentrating upon any given time—The City,
say, or The Emerging Constitution.”9 In particular, this sentence is clear and enlightening in its
lengthiness because Didion details the daily task of those working at the Center. By taking the
perspective of an expert, she gives the reader a full idea of what employees at the Center do.
When Didion writes as an expert on a subject, what she writes has less room for interpretation. If
done amateurishly, the long sentence structure could inhibit the piece’s clearness. In this case,
the lengthy syntax structure enhances Didion’s piece. The sentences provide the reader with a
clear picture and message. These long sentences illustrate the complexity of the subject to the
reader. In a journal article in the Sewanee Review, Robert Lacy wrote that Didion’s long-winded
sentences add to her writing: “And she’s good at the long sonorous ones that loop back and forth
7
Murphy, James E. "The New Journalism: A Critical Perspective." Journalism Monographs (1974). Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
<http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED096677.pdf>.
8
Fakazis, Liz. Encyclopedia Britannica.
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Didion, Joan. We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. Rpt. of Slouching Towards
Bethlehem. 1968.
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within themselves like a circus aerialist before arriving breathtakingly at their conclusions.”10
Didion’s long sentences illustrate to the reader that she is not jumping to any conclusions. In her
lengthy sentences, it is as if she is exploring all areas of the issue before forming her opinion.
Her lengthy syntax structure allows the reader to take in each aspect of the issue and arrive at
Didion’s conclusion. If the reader doesn’t agree with Didion, he or she can at least be aware of
Didion’s reasoning.
Didion’s long sentence structure arouses emotion in the reader and enables the reader to
connect with her story. Unlike traditional journalism, New Journalism was allowed to be
subjective as long as it maintained its factualness. Before the New Journalism Movement, many
Americans might not have been interested in reading about politics in a newspaper because the
writing could be considered dry and difficult to connect to. The long sentences are relatable
because they have a conversational quality. Sometimes, people speak in long sentences with
multiple clauses to achieve their point. Didion’s syntax structure keeps the reader’s interest and
illustrates the complexity of her subject.
Didion became fascinated with the 1960s and continued writing about the decade well
into the 1970s. In “The White Album,” published in The White Album in 1979, Didion reflects
on the mid-to-late 1960s and examines her role in and perspective on the period. To illustrate her
role and perspective to the reader while primarily detailing social events, Didion weaves in her
own narrative. She is honest about her position in the narrative and how she is viewing a myriad
of political events through her personal lenses. Part of Didion’s perspective is influenced from
her suffering with nausea and vertigo.
10
Lacy, Robert. "Joan Didion: Daughter of Old California." Sewanee Review (2014). MLA International Bibliography. Web. 11
Apr. 2015.
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“The tests mentioned…were administered privately, in the outpatient psychiatric clinic at
St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, in the summer of 1968, shortly after I suffered the
“attack of vertigo and nausea” mentioned in the first sentence and shortly before I was
named Los Angeles Times “Woman of the Year.” By way of comment, I offer only that
an attack of vertigo and nausea does not now seem to me an inappropriate response to the
summer of 1968.”11
Didion is able to skillfully offer her opinion on the decade through her narrative of dealing with
nausea and vertigo. In other words, she is saying that the 1960s was a whirlwind of a decade
complete with overwhelming social events. By being open about her mental state during that
period, Didion is adding a sense of emotional vulnerability to her writing. She grasps the reader’s
attention by saying that a strong response to that summer is completely valid. The reader wants
to continue reading to learn how she perceived those events that they possibly caused or led to
spells of nausea and vertigo. In The Quarterly Review, Thomas Reinhart explains the multiple
literary devices Didion incorporates through her straight forward narrative. “Always alert to the
comfort of narrative simplicity, she is less alert to the pleasures of complexity, disjointedness,
and irony that so conspicuously belong to her own kind of writing.”12 For Reinhart, it is ironic
that in the retelling of a breakdown, the reader still views Didion as an authoritative narrator.13
For the reader, Didion’s authority is derived from how she owns her experiences and emotions.
Didion capitalizes on the notion that her experience during the 1960s was unique and relays that
to the reader.
11
Didion, Joan. We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. Rpt. of The White Album.
1979.
12
Reinert, Thomas. "Joan Didion and Political Irony." A Quarterly Review 15.3 (1996). MLA International Bibliography. Web.
11 Apr. 2015.
13
Reinert, Thomas. "Joan Didion and Political Irony."
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Didion incorporates her personal narrative in the popular narratives of the 1960s. She
begins the piece with an examination of how people create and rely on stories for satisfaction,
lessons, or knowledge. She uses this introduction as a foundation for her to tell plausible
narratives about and provide social commentary on the violence in Los Angeles. In the fifth
section of the piece, Didion writes about Huey Newton and the Black Panthers. Didion
incorporates her own narrative while detailing how Huey Newton ended up in jail. Before she
includes her own narrative, Didion outlines the subjects she will be exploring in her piece. In a
sense, the piece has an objective aspect and, if written in the traditional style, could have been
written for a newspaper:
“I am telling you neither that Huey Newton killed John Frey nor that Huey Newton did
not kill John Frey, for in the context of revolutionary politics Huey Newton’s guilt or
innocence was irrelevant. I am telling you only how Huey Newton happened to be in the
Alameda County Jail, and why rallies were held in his name, demonstrations organized
whenever he appeared in court.”14
This statement often serves as the unsaid disclaimer for a newspaper article. Yet, this honesty
enables her to emotionally connect to the reader. Didion makes it clear that she is not writing
propaganda or attempting to fool the reader in any way. Instead of only writing about the events
that surrounded Huey Newton, Didion expands the story to include her own narrative, her
reaction to his ordeal, and her dissection of the cultural implications of the event.
“For a long time, I kept a copy of this testimony pinned to my office wall, on the theory
that it illustrated a collision of cultures, a classic instance of an historical outsider
14
Didion, Joan. Rpt. of The White Album. 1979.
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confronting the established order at its most petty and impenetrable. This theory was
shattered when I learned that Huey Newton was in fact an enrolled member of the Kaiser
Foundation Health Plan, i.e. in Nurse Leonard’s words, “a Kaiser.”15
By including her own actions in the piece, she expresses her hopefulness and subsequent
hopelessness to the readers. In this case, Didion is an outside observer to events. Through this
outsider position, Didion is able to provide a sense of morality and complexity to the reader.
Reinhart explains how these seemingly minute instances that Didion includes in her writing can
easily magnify to represent a larger occurrence. “The moral is that simple tropes, simple
scenarios setting good and evil in opposition to each other, will not suffice to grasp history and
politics, and what emerges in their place is irony.”16 The writing style synonymous with the New
Journalism Movement enabled Didion to be ironic and touch on what Americans’ thought about
political events.
When writing about the radical culture of the 1960s, Didion didn’t only focus on social
movements. Her view of culture included events that made headlines all over her beloved state of
California. This was the case for Gordon Miller’s murder, supposedly committed by his wife,
Lucille Miller. This scandalous murder case took some of the public’s attention. Instead of
writing a breaking news story or a second-day feature on the event, Didion decided to write an
essay about the event, specifically about the fateful night of Gordon Miller’s death and the
resulting trial and general aftermath. This longform writing allowed her to incorporate
descriptions of the California scenery that surrounded the murder. In this essay, “Some Dreamers
of the Golden Dream” in Slouching Towards Bethlemem Didion includes many specific details
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16
Didion, Joan. Rpt. of The White Album. 1979.
Reinert, Thomas. "Joan Didion and Political Irony."
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which enhance the events and match the tone she wants to achieve. In a sense, Didion creates a
new but not untrue reality. When describing Banyan Street, the sight of the murder, Didion
wrote, “Like so much of this country, Banyan suggests something curious and unnatural. The
lemon groves are sunken, down a three-or four-foot retaining wall, so that one looks directly into
their dense foliage, too lush, unsettlingly glossy, the greenery of a nightmare; the fallen
eucalyptus bark is too dusty, a place for snakes to breed.”17 While including undisputable facts,
such as the type of trees and the height of the retaining wall, Didion also imposes her own details
onto the story, such as her description of the leaves and their association with a nightmare. The
notion that the leaves are “unsettlingly glossy” is subjective; another person at the scene may
perceive the leaves to be the exact opposite. Didion is careful in her writing and doesn’t say that
snakes breed on Banyan Street, but instead say that it is a suitable place for that to happen.
Snakes are known for being sly and dangerous. By placing the possibility of snakes in the scene,
Didion is making Banyan Street feel eerie. Didion’s detail creates a vivid image of Banyan Street
for the reader. Some scholars believe that the specific details found in Didion’s writing are
exaggerated or not completely true. “In fact, Didion is so unlike a camera that she occasionally
creates details for her stories. The journalist’s invention of detail, usually through composite
characterization or the reporting of characters’ unspoken thoughts, has been the focus of most
attacks on New Journalism’s accuracy.”18 Didion’s subjective details make any story captivating
and therefore, engage the reader.
There are some details that Didion doesn’t know because her character doesn’t
remember. Because the genre is a subset of nonfiction, Didion cannot create details in the place
17
Didion, Joan. Rpt. of Slouching Towards Bethlehem. 1968.
Muggli, Mark Z. "The Poetics of Joan Didion's Journalism." American Literature: A Journal Of Literary History, Criticism,
And Bibliography (1987). MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
18
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of forgetfulness. In these cases, which happened with Lucille Miller in “Some Dreamers of the
Golden Dream,” Didion is honest about her character’s lapse in memory and tells the story with
uncertainty. “Lucille Miller remembers reaching over to lock his door as she backed down the
driveway…There is some confusion in Lucille Miller’s mind about what happened between
12:30 a.m., when the fire broke out, and 1:50 a.m., when it was reported.”19 This honesty builds
Didion’s credibility. She is being clear with the reader and not piecing together a story with false
information.
Many of the details in “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” are particular to the New
Journalism Movement because they aren’t necessary for a traditional journalism article. For
example, if Didion wrote an article about the fire in Lucille Miller’s car on Banyan Street,
Didion would primarily include the information pertaining to who, what, when, where, and why.
The height of the lemon groves or the density or their shrubbery is not necessary information.
These details help the reader recreate the fateful night of Gordon Miller’s death. Also, when
Didion refers to Lucille Miller, she uses her whole name instead of just her last, which doesn’t
match newspaper style. Using the character’s whole name allows the reader to connect to her
more and view her as a complex character.
Not only did New Journalism thrive because it originated in the 1960s, a time popular for
social movements, but also because of Didion. Her emotional and narrative-driven writing
garnered the public’s attention. Readers responded favorable to Didion’s writing style; it was
nothing like the traditional, newspaper-style journalism they were used to which conveyed facts
and not usually emotion. She found political and cultural subjects, events, and places and
expanded them into engaging stories. Didion’s lengthy syntax structure, narrative weaving, and
19
Didion, Joan. Rpt. of Slouching Towards Bethlehem. 1968.
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inclusion of specific, and sometimes subjective, details draw the reader in and enable him or her
to become emotionally invested in the story. Through her use of literary techniques, Didion
makes the reader to care about the characters and where the story takes place.
Works Cited
Didion, Joan. We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2006. Print. Rpt. of Slouching Towards Bethlehem. 1968.
Didion, Joan. We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Print. Rpt. of The White Album. 1979.
Fakazis, Liz. Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/411713/New-Journalism>.
"Joan Didion." Academy of Achievement. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/did0bio-1>.
Koch, Wendy. "Carson's 'Silent Spring' spurred environmental movement." USA Today 27 Sept.
2012. Web. 8 Apr. 2015.
<http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012/09/27/carsons-silent-springspurred-environmental-movement/57845706/1>.
Lacy, Robert. "Joan Didion: Daughter of Old California." Sewanee Review (2014). MLA
International Bibliography. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.
Muggli, Mark Z. "The Poetics of Joan Didion's Journalism." American Literature: A Journal Of
Literary History, Criticism, And Bibliography (1987). MLA International Bibliography.
Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
Murphy, James E. "The New Journalism: A Critical Perspective." Journalism
Monographs (1974). Web. 9 Apr. 2015.
<http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED096677.pdf>.
Napikoski, Linda. "1960s Feminist Activities." About Education, n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2015.
<http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/tp/1960s_feminist_activities.htm>.
Reinert, Thomas. "Joan Didion and Political Irony." A Quarterly Review 15.3 (1996). MLA
International Bibliography. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.
"The 1960s." History, n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. <http://www.history.com/topics/1960s>.
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