The White Album

The White Album is a collection of essays by Joan Didion. The book was published in 1979, but most of the essays previously appeared independently in prominent magazines like Esquire and Life. The essays center on California life and popular culture. Didion was born in California and lived a large part of life on the West Coast, so she was acutely familiar with its nuances and narratives. As a prolific writer of multiple kinds of media—books, screenplays, and magazine articles—Didion was keenly aware of how entertainment industries and divergent cultures impact American identity and reality. The essays are an example of New Journalism—a literary movement that turns the journalist into a personality and the article into a story.

Didion was known for her chic, minimalist style, and in 2015, at 80, she starred in an ad campaign for the fashion brand Celine. Seven years later, she died. Aside from a captivating image, she left an array of acclaimed books, including the earlier essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), the novel Play It as It Lays (1970), and a memoir about her husband’s death,

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