A review by lewismillholland
Goodbye To All That by Joan Didion

3.0

In the third-to-last chapter of "Hemingway's Boat" Paul Hendrickson mentions this essay as the "famous leaving New York story" (or something close enough to that). Within the scope of his book it was a throwaway line but since I'm planning my own good-bye it excited me. And it's pretty good. It's Hemingway-esque in its simple language and fear of the comma, and when Didion explains that Easterners will never understand what New York means to people growing up in the West or the South I immediately filed that tidbit away as the wedge to convince Tian and Nico to read it, too. Some of the punch was lost on me since I've done the New York thing for a year now and am sick of it, but Didion's own disillusionment is still exciting. This is one I'll need to re-read closer to my departure, and maybe again and again after that.