A review by lookatthelua
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Ending with “Goodbye to All That” was really saving the best for last. I read it aloud to Jackson because he’s sick and in need of screenless entertainment, and because it was the last essay in the book and because it was the first sample I’d ever read of Joan’s writing and because Phoebe Bridgers has quoted it personally and via boygenius lyrics: “was anyone ever so young?” I remember reading that in my early twenties kind of getting it, but now reading it at 29 and if I told you about the things I said, did, thought between ages 20-24, you really would say, no way, was anyone ever really that young and ridiculous? And I’d say, like Joan, I’m here to tell you that yes, they were.

We both connected with this essay in different ways. Jack said he felt validated because although he’s never been to New York, he has sensed that it would be like a fair the way Joan described and that it is overrated and not meant for living long term or for ordinary folks. I connected to the realization that we have a finite number of afternoons and that maybe nowhere I live will ever feel like where I am from. We both were reminded of Frances Ha and Lady Bird and Greta Gerwig lore with the growing up in Sacramento and moving to NYC as a young adult, and it not being maybe everything it was sold as.

As for the book as a whole, it was a collection of essays so I started adding notes as I went along, so I don’t know if I have much to say about it as a collection. As a whole, it did make me miss California and wonder if I would have turned out more like Joan if I had never moved away myself. But that’s probably just California dreamin’.