Joan Didion:The Last Interview

Joan Didion:The Last Interview

and Other Conversations

About the Book

The iconic writer whose prose was as influential and as it is unmistakably hers is joined in conversation with Sheila Heti, Hilton Als, Dave Eggers, Hari Kunzru and many more.

Some writers define a generation. Some a genre. Joan Didion did both, and much more. Didion rose to prominence with her nonfiction collection, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and she quickly became the writer who captured the zeitgeist of the washed-out, acid hangover of the 60s. But as a bicoastal writer of fiction and nonfiction whose writing ranged from personal essays and raw, intimate memoirs to reportage on international affairs and social justice, Didion is much harder to pin down than her reputation might suggest.
 
This collection encompasses it all, in conversations that delve into her underappreciated mid-career works, her influences, the loss of her husband and daughter, and her most infamous essays. Far from the evasive, terse minimalist that has come to dominate the image of Joan Didion, what this collection reveals is a warm, thoughtful woman whose well earned legacy promises to live on for readers and writers for many generations to come.
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Praise for Joan Didion:The Last Interview

"Candid interviews with a literary icon...A gift for Didion’s many fans." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Little about her writing goes undiscussed. The Last Interview highlights the complex person behind both the image and the pen." -- Alta Online

"This curated collection of interviews with Joan Didion is marked by her consistently brilliant way of thinking, but also by her shifts in tone over time...Patricia Lockwood's introduction — strong, smart and convincing — is reason enough to read the collection." -- The Star Tribune
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The Last Interview Series

Jimmy Carter: The Last Interview
Sinéad O'Connor: The Last Interview
Octavia E. Butler: The Last Interview
bell hooks: The Last Interview
Kurt Cobain: The Last Interview
Diego Maradona: The Last Interview
Joan Didion:The Last Interview
Janet Malcolm: The Last Interview
John Lewis: The Last Interview
Johnny Cash: The Last Interview
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About the Author

Patricia Lockwood
Patricia Lockwood is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her 2021 debut novel, No One Is Talking About This, won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her 2017 memoir Priestdaddy won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Her poetry collections include Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, a 2014 New York Times Notable Book. More by Patricia Lockwood
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About the Author

MELVILLE HOUSE
Melville House is an independent publisher located in Brooklyn, New York. It was founded in 2001 by sculptor Valerie Merians and fiction writer/journalist Dennis Johnson, in order to publish Poetry After 9/11, a book of material culled from Johnson’s groundbreaking MobyLives book blog. The material consisted of things sent in to the blog by writers and poets in response to the 9/11 attacks, and Johnson and Merians felt it better represented the spirit of New York than the call to war of the Bush administration. More by MELVILLE HOUSE
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