Slouching Towards Bethlehem

The essay begins with Didion’s description of a nation in moral crisis, particularly with regard to young people who are caught up in the psychedelic drug scene in the late spring of 1967. She decides to go to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, though she doesn’t yet know what she intends to find out.

From here, the essay unfolds as a series of vignettes that document Didion’s experiences in the city. She sees a sign on the street saying that a woman is looking for her lost “Christopher Robin” (85). While waiting for an acquaintance named Deadeye, Didion speaks to a man on crystal meth who is looking for a ride to New York. When she encounters him later, he has decided New York is a bummer. When she finally tracks down Deadeye, he offers her some marijuana and says he’s trying to set up a religious group.

Didion goes to dinner with her friends Don and Max. Max is a long-time drug user who takes LSD every week, and he tells her about his life. He wants to go to a commune in the Malakoff Diggings of Nevada, and they go to see his friend Otto about wanting to tag along. Otto tells Didion the story of a fourteen-year-old girl who was arrested in the park while on acid.