Slouching Towards Bethlehem

First published in 1968, this is a collection of essays on California and American public life in the 1960s. The title piece reports from Haight-Ashbury among runaways and drugs; others treat a San Bernardino murder, John Wayne on a set, Howard Hughes, Las Vegas weddings, and the author's own notes toward a self-respect. Didion writes as a journalist who is also a private witness, using precise local detail and a cool first person. There is no continuous narrative. The book is a set of reported essays, not a novel and not a history of the decade as a whole.

Bound in off white textured paper blocked and printed with a portrait in black of Joan Didion by Don Bachardy, red titling on spine. Ribbon marker. Plain slipcase.