Vintage Didion (22 page)
In this foray into the American cultural scene, Joan Didion covers ground from Washington to Los Angeles, from a TV producer’s gargantuan “manor” to the racial battlefields of New York’s criminal courts. A bracing amalgam of skepticism and sympathy,
After Henry
is proof of Didion’s infallible radar for the true spirit of our age.
Current Affairs/Literature/0-679-74539-4
A Book of Common Prayer
The intertwining story of two American women in the derelict Central American nation of Boca Grande; one controls much of the country’s wealth and knows all of its secrets, while the other vainly hopes to be reunited with her fugitive daughter.
Fiction/Literature/0-679-75486-5
Democracy
Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around Inez have made careers out of losing track. Her senator husband wants to forget the failure of his last bid for the presidency. Her husband’s handler would like the press to forget that Inez’s father is a murderer. And, in 1975, the year in which much of this bitterly funny novel is set, America is doing its best to lose track of its one-time client, the lethally hemorrhaging republic of South Vietnam.
Fiction/Literature/0-679-75485-7
The Last Thing He Wanted
In 1984 Elena McMahon walks off the presidential campaign she has been covering for a major newspaper to do a favor for her father. Elena’s father does deals. And it is while acting as his agent in one such deal—a deal that shortly goes spectacularly wrong—that she finds herself on an island where tourism has been superseded by arms dealing, covert action, and assassination.
Fiction/Literature/0-679-75285-4
Miami
It is where Fidel Castro raised money to overthrow Batista and where Castro’s enemies have raised armies to overthrow
him
, so far without success. It is where the Cuban exile intersects with the cynicism of U.S. foreign policy. It is a city whose skyrocketing murder rate is fueled by the cocaine trade, racial discontent, and an undeclared war on the island ninety miles to the south.
Miami
is a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion, hypocrisy, and political violence.
Current Affairs/Literature/0-679-781 80-3
Political Fictions
Through the deconstruction of the sound bites and photo ops of three presidential campaigns, one presidential impeachment, and an unforgettable sex scandal, Didion reveals the mechanics of American politics. She tells us the uncomfortable truth about the way we vote, the candidates we vote for, and the people who tell us to vote for them. A disturbing portrait of the American political landscape, and essential reading on democracy.
Current Affairs/0-375-71 890-7
Run River
Joan Didion’s electrifying first novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California.
Fiction/Literature/0-679-75250-1
Salvador
In 1982, Joan Didion traveled to El Salvador at the ghastly height of its civil war.
Salvador
is an anatomy of that country’s particular brand of terror—its mechanisms, rationales, and relationship to the United States. As she travels from battle fields to body dumps, Didion trains a merciless eye not only on the horror but also on the depredations and evasions of her own country’s foreign policy. Current Affairs/Literature/0-679-751 83-1
VINTAGE READERS
Authors available in this series
Martin Amis
James Baldwin
Sandra Cisneros
Joan Didion
Richard Ford
Langston Hughes
Barry Lopez
Alice Munro
Haruki Murakami
Vladimir Nabokov
V. S. Naipaul
Oliver Sacks
Representing a wide spectrum of some of our most significant modern authors, the Vintage Readers offer an attractive, accessible selection of writing that matters
.
A VINTAGE ORIGINAL, JANUARY 2004
Copyright
©
2004 by The DBA Company
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
“Girl of the Golden West,” “In the Realm of the Fisher King,” “Sentimental Journeys,” “Clinton Agonistes,” and “Fixed Opinions, or The Hinge of History” by Joan Didion, copyright © 1963-2003 by NYREV Inc. Reprinted by permission of The New York Review of Books. “Girl of the Golden West,” “In the Realm of the Fisher King,” and “Sentimental Journeys” were subsequently published in
After Henry
by Joan Didion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992; Vintage Books, 1993). “Clinton Agonistes” was subsequently published in
Political Fictions
by Joan Didion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., 2001; Vintage Books, 2002). “Fixed Opinions, or The Hinge of History” was subsequently published as
Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11
by Joan Didion (New York: New York Review Book, published by The New York Review of Books). “Arrival in San Salvador” and “The Metropolitan Cathedral in San Salvador, 1982” were originally published in
Salvador
, copyright © 1983 by Joan Didion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983; Vintage Books, 1994). “Miami One,” “Miami Two,” and “Miami Three” were originally published in
Miami
, copyright © 1987 by Joan Didion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987; Vintage Books, 1998).
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Didion, Joan.
[Essays, Selections]
Vintage Didion /Joan Didion.
p. cm.
Contents: Girl of the golden West—Arrival in San Salvador—The Metropolitan Cathredral in San Salvador, 1982—Miami one—Miami two—Miami three—In the realm of the Fisher King—Sentimental journeys—Clinton agonistes—Fixed opinions.
eISBN: 978-0-307-54875-7
I. Title.
PS3554.I33A6 2004
814V54—dc21 2003053754
Book design by Jo Ann Metsch
v3.0