Key themes
- The failure of the 1960s counterculture — told from inside it
- Personal essay as a way of thinking out loud about a disintegrating world
- California as the place where America's self-deception is most visible
About this book
Sharp, cool essays on 1960s America; the book that set the standard for the personal essay.
Published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem is Didion's first essay collection and established her as one of the great American nonfiction writers. The title is from Yeats's 'The Second Coming.'
Discussion questions
- The title essay is about the Haight-Ashbury scene in 1967. How does Didion develop her relationship to the counterculture — sympathetic, contemptuous, or something more complicated?
- Didion uses the first person with great precision — she is always present but never intrusive. How does she manage this?
- The collection covers very different subjects — movies, politics, her own childhood in Sacramento. What connects them — and what is Didion's broader argument about California?
- 'The White Album' opens with one of the most famous lines in American nonfiction: 'We tell ourselves stories in order to live.' What does Didion mean — and how does the collection bear this out?
- Didion is often described as a New Journalist — using literary techniques in journalism. What specifically does this mean — and what does her approach give to subject matter that conventional reporting cannot?
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