Joan Didion

Joan Didion (born December 05, 1934, Sacramento, California, U.S.- died December 23, 2021, New York City, New York, U.S.) was an American writer who launched her career in the 1960s after winning an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the '60s and the Hollywood lifestyle. Her political writing often concentrated on the subtext of political and social rhetoric. In 1991, she wrote the earliest mainstream media article to suggest the Central Park Five had been wrongfully convicted. In 2005, she won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography for The Year of Magical Thinking. She later adapted the book into a play, which premiered on Broadway in 2007. In 2017, Didion was profiled in the Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold, directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Family

• Daughter of Frank Reese Didion (1908-1992) and Eduene Jerrett (1910-2001)
• Sister of James Jerrett Dillon (1939 - 2020)
• Wife of John Gregory Dunne (May 25, 1932 - December 30, 2003) (Married January 30, 1964)
• (Adoptive) Mother of Quintana Roo (Dunne) Michael (March 03, 1966 - August 26, 2005)

“She was a fifth-generation Californian descended from settlers who left the ill-fated Donner party in 1846 and took the safer route." <Nancy Cornwall>

References

• "Joan Didion." Wikipedia, revision of 23 December 2021. < link > Accessed 23 December 2021.
• Grimes, William. "Joan Didion, 'New Journalist' Who Explored Culture and Chaos, Dies at 87." New York Times, published 23 December 2021. < link > Accessed 23 December 2021.
• “Joan Didion, legendary American writer, dead at 87.” By Andrew Court. New York Post. December 23, 2021 < link > Joan Didion has died at the age of 87, her publisher has confirmed. The legendary essayist, novelist and screenwriter — who has long been revered as one of America’s preeminent writers — passed away at her Manhattan home Thursday morning. “We are deeply saddened to report that Joan Didion died earlier this morning at her home in New York due to complications from Parkinson’s disease,” Penguin Random House/Knopf said in a statement. She is preceded in death by her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and their daughter, Quintana Roo. … “They had great dinner parties,” her nephew Griffin Dunne told The Post in 2017. “People would get stoned and drink and that was a harrowing drive home.”
• Joan Didion: The NPR interviews. < link > NPR's coverage of Joan Didion, who died Thursday at age 87, dates back to 1977, where she described what she meant when she wrote "writers are always selling somebody out" in the introduction of her 1968 book Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
• Davidson, Sara. Joan: Forty Years of Life, Loss, and Friendship with Joan Didion, ISBN 978-1-61452-016-0 (2011) < GoogleBooks >
• “ Where She Was From.” December 2011-January 2012 issue of Sactown Magazine. < link > On the eve of her 77th birthday, Sacramento’s native daughter Joan Didion reflects on the untimely deaths of her husband and daughter, the difficulty of parenting, and why, as a teenager, she really, really wanted a job at the California State Fair. Her father’s great-grandfather owned a saloon called (perhaps) Didion’s on Front Street Street in Old Sacramento.
• Daugherty, Tracy. The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015
  • ”The Elitist Allure of Joan Didion. A big biography looks at the author’s legacy of cool.” Book review by Meghan Daum. The Atlantic, Sept. 2015. < link >. “It’s remarkable, then, that Tracy Daugherty’s The Last Love Song is the first full-length biography ever published of Didion. Given the number of writers who, especially early in their literary lives, go through a period of Didion-mania intense enough to put most of her vital statistics permanently at their fingertips (the rain-soaked silk curtains in the apartment on 75th Street! the house on Franklin Avenue! the Corvette!), you would think we’d have seen at least as many biographies of her in the past 40 years as have been written about Taylor Swift in the past two (nine, if you must know). … Didion occupies the rare cultural position of having been a sacred cow (or sacred mouse) from almost the beginning. …
• “Joan Didion is the epitome of cool in Celine's latest ad campaign.” (Juergen Teller for Celine) By Beth Stebner, New York Daily News. Jan 07, 2015. < Link >
• “Joan Didion Is Ready for Her Close-Up.” By Dana Spiotta. Photography by Annie Leibovitz. Vogue Magazine. September 18, 2017. < link >

Genealogical Records

• "California Birth Index, 1905-1995," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V2Q7-C1J : 27 November 2014), Jerrett in entry for Joan Didion, 05 Dec 1934; citing Sacramento, California, United States, Department of Health Services, Vital Statistics Department, Sacramento.
• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K94T-W85 : 6 January 2021), Joan Didion in household of Frank Didion, Sacramento Judicial Township, Sacramento, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 34-115, sheet 2A, line 10, family 28, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 285.
• 2000 22nd Street, aka the “Didion House” < link >Didion lived with her aunt in the house during her teen years. She talked about the home in an interview late last year with Rob Turner, publisher of Sactown Magazine, remembering it as a “great house . . . it was an odd house for Sacramento in that it was not Victorian or Edwardian. It was a slightly older date.”
• Joan Didion in the California, U.S., Marriage Index, 1960-1985 < AncestryImage > Name: Joan Didion Gender: Female Birth Year: abt 1935 Age: 29 Marriage Date: 30 Jan 1964 Marriage Place: San Benito, California, USA Spouse Name: John G Dunne Spouse Age: 31
• Ancestry.com. U.S., Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-current [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2020. < link > Name: Miss Joan Didion Gender: Female Residence Date: Abt 1964 Residence Place: New York Occupation: Staff Writer Employer: Vogue Magazine School: University of California At Berkeley Marriage Date: 30 Jan 1964 Marriage Place: Carmel , Calif. Father: Frank Reece Didion Mother: Didion Spouse: John Gregory Dunne
• Quintana M Dunne in the California Birth Index, 1905-1995 < AncestryImage > Name: Quintana M Dunne Birth Date: 3 Mar 1966. Gender: Female Mother's Maiden Name: Didion Birth County: Los Angeles.
• Joan Didion: A Writer’s Space. < Medium >, Cynthia Giles, Nov. 11, 2019. Discusses HG Magazine, 1992. “By Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Photographs by Michael Mundy. Produced by Charles Gandee.” A photo spread of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne’s New York City apartment, with text written by Didion and Dunne themselves. The famous couple had moved from Southern California to NYC in 1988 (“impulsively,” they said), and because both were so closely connected with West Coast culture, the relocation made news.
• ”Genevieve Didion dedicated her life to education.” September 5, 2015. < Valley Community Newspapers >. Genevieve Shields became part of the Didion family in August 1924 through her marriage to Joseph Frank Didion, a widower and father of two sons. Despite that union, those boys resided with Joseph Frank’s sister, Pearl Didion. Joseph Frank’s first wife, Ethel Mira Reese Didion, fell victim of the flu pandemic on Nov. 14, 1918. …. She was author Joan Didion’s step grandmother.
• “Obituary for Frank Reese Didion (Aged 84).” < Newspapers.com > The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, California 22 Dec 1992, Tue • Page 23
• Didion, Joan. (2003) Where I was from. New York: Vintage Books. (Essays) < Wikipedia description >
  • *“Where I Was From” By Joan Didion, Sept. 28, 2003. First chapter, excerpted in < The New York Times >
• "United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, 1980-2014," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK46-X33Z : accessed 23 December 2021), Joan Didion in entry for John Gregory Dunne, Long Island, New York, United States, 01 Jan 2004; from "Recent Newspaper Obituaries (1977 - Today)," database, GenealogyBank.com (http://www.genealogybank.com : 2014); citing Newsday, born-digital text.
• Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, 39; Daughter of Joan Didion, J.G. Dunne L.A. TIMES ARCHIVES SEPT. 3, 2005 12 AM PT FROM TIMES STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS < link > Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, 39, the daughter of writers Joan Didion and the late John Gregory Dunne, died Aug. 26 at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital.
• Didion, Joan (2006). The year of magical thinking. New York: A.A. Knopf (memoir) < Wikipedia description >
• Joan Didion in entry for Robert Eldridge “Bob” Didion, December 12, 2010. < Legacy.com from Sacramento Bee >
• Didion, Joan (2012). Blue Nights. New York City, NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307387387. (Memoir) < Wikipedia description >
• Joan Didion in entry for James Didion, April 2, 2020. < Legacy.com from Monterey Herald >
• Grimes, William (December 23, 2021). "Joan Didion, 'New Journalist' Who Explored Culture and Chaos, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Retrieved December 23, 2021. < link >
• < FindAGrave Memorial ID 235133293 >
• < ethnicelebs > notes:
  • Joan Didion was the daughter of Eduene (Jerrett) and Frank Reese Didion. < FamilySearch >
    • Joan’s paternal grandfather was Joseph Francis Didion (the son of John F. Didion and Mary Jeanette Dreman). Joseph was born in California. John was born in Bavaria, Germany. Mary was the daughter of John Frederick Dreman, who was born in Hannover, Prussia, and of Ann Clarke.
    • Joan’s paternal grandmother was Ethel Mira Reese (the daughter of David D. Reese and Mira L. Kilgore). Ethel was born in California. David was born in Carmarthenshire, Wales, the son of John Rees and Elizabeth Anthony. Mira was the daughter of William H. Gilgore and Elizabeth Hanlon.
    • Joan’s maternal grandfather was Hermann/Herman Daniel Jerrett (the son of Daniel Jerrett and Clarinda Ellen “Clara” Farnsworth). Hermann was born in California. Daniel was the son of Robert Jerrett and Diadama Worden. Clarinda was the daughter of Seba Calvin Farnsworth and Hulda Shaw.
    • Joan’s maternal grandmother was Edna F. Magee (the daughter of James Bernard Magee and Sarah Elizabeth Geiger). Edna was born in Oregon. James was Irish. Sarah was the daughter of William Geiger, Jr. and Elizabeth Cornwall.