Deconstructing Didion

By Ellen Blum Barish

We may risk being disappointed by meeting someone we admire, but if that someone inspired us to become who we are now, don’t they merit a closer look no matter what we’ll find?

This was my thinking after Joan Didion died. She was among a small handful of women writers who inspired me to study personal narratives. Like Joan, I began my writing career as a journalist and was drawn to the ‘I’ after writing a monthly newspaper column that ultimately became an essay col...