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kayleajayne's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
This was a very thorough biography, and though Joan’s life was so very much to plow through, it didn’t get boring because of the h many different historical and political stories that Joan told and those that intertwined with her life. Great book.
abbeyhar103's review
1.0
No. I got 30 pages in and gave up. Going into it, I didn't realize that the author didn't have access to anything in Didion's life - her, her papers, interviews with anyone close to her - he truly has almost nothing aside from her own published works and the conclusions he wants to draw from them. Her own works tell a much better story of her life than pieces together pile of crAp. Also he tries to mimic her sparse and repetitive way of writing, as well as her singular way of structuring sentences. Gross
adam_armstrong_yu's review against another edition
5.0
The Last Love Song (Daugherty 2016): A sprawling journey through Joan Didion's life, as reflected through her books, set against the backdrop of a country through decades of turbulence, upheaval, and change. Marvelous.
adambwriter's review against another edition
3.0
What a gift to witness Joan Didion grow, and grow up. She was always a great writer. She became a great person. I admire no one more than the person who can face the truth and then change because they've faced it.
I wasn't a big fan of the style, here, though I do understand the author had to write this without Didion's cooperation. If you've read all of Didion's work and seen her interviews, there's not a whole lot to be gained. That said, the detail (which is fairly criticised as being overwhelming) and chronology, and the inclusion of stories happening/lives being lived in close proximity to Didion's, while at first irritating (as overkill/unnecessary), eventually made a lot of sense. If you're writing about a writer who is always looking for the threads, why not include the threads? I think we get closer to a truth that way.
I'm not sure I can forgive the biographer for disillusioning me about Didion's personality--oh, we'd have never been very good friends--but it's safe to say she remains my favorite writer.
I wasn't a big fan of the style, here, though I do understand the author had to write this without Didion's cooperation. If you've read all of Didion's work and seen her interviews, there's not a whole lot to be gained. That said, the detail (which is fairly criticised as being overwhelming) and chronology, and the inclusion of stories happening/lives being lived in close proximity to Didion's, while at first irritating (as overkill/unnecessary), eventually made a lot of sense. If you're writing about a writer who is always looking for the threads, why not include the threads? I think we get closer to a truth that way.
I'm not sure I can forgive the biographer for disillusioning me about Didion's personality--oh, we'd have never been very good friends--but it's safe to say she remains my favorite writer.
cayleigh's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.0
This book is best for someone who hasn't read works of Joan Didion before as it largely relied on her existing work. It was very Didion-esque in that in was part history, part literary criticism, part biography. The main advantage of reading this was that it helped me contextualize many of the things that I've read of Didion's but struggled to place within greater historical context.
kricketa's review
3.0
I've had a copy of this kicking around the house for a few years and decided the time had come to read it when Didion passed away this past December. In retrospect, I might have spent that time better by re-reading some of my favorites by her, or picking up her titles that I haven't read yet, but at some point I decided it would feel really good to read this doorstop to completion, so I did.
I don't have a lot to say that hasn't been mentioned by other reviewers, but for my own sake-
-Daugherty didn't speak directly with Didion for this project, so most of what comes directly from her can be found in her own work.
-It's more of a Joan Didion-adjacent biography than a biography of Didion herself. There was almost as much information about Didion's brother-in-law, Dominick Dunne, as there was about Didion herself. Didion's own brother, on the other hand, gets about 3 mentions. There's a lot of information about what is happening in the world as it informs Didion's work and I did appreciate this, but sometimes it made the book feel disjointed. (Ex: at the end, when John & Quintana are both having health catastrophes and suddenly the reader is thrown into an overview of Abu Ghraib.)
-Several of the sources that Daugherty does manage to speak directly to are somewhat random (the people who bought Dunne & Didion's Brentwood house, Quintana's stepson) but get a lot of real estate in the book.
-That said, I do think Daugherty crafts very nice sentences. But I don't know that I would recommend this to anyone in a public library setting unless they have already read everything by Didion and want to know what other people thought of her house or what cabin her brother-in-law stayed in when he was feeling sad.
I don't have a lot to say that hasn't been mentioned by other reviewers, but for my own sake-
-Daugherty didn't speak directly with Didion for this project, so most of what comes directly from her can be found in her own work.
-It's more of a Joan Didion-adjacent biography than a biography of Didion herself. There was almost as much information about Didion's brother-in-law, Dominick Dunne, as there was about Didion herself. Didion's own brother, on the other hand, gets about 3 mentions. There's a lot of information about what is happening in the world as it informs Didion's work and I did appreciate this, but sometimes it made the book feel disjointed. (Ex: at the end, when John & Quintana are both having health catastrophes and suddenly the reader is thrown into an overview of Abu Ghraib.)
-Several of the sources that Daugherty does manage to speak directly to are somewhat random (the people who bought Dunne & Didion's Brentwood house, Quintana's stepson) but get a lot of real estate in the book.
-That said, I do think Daugherty crafts very nice sentences. But I don't know that I would recommend this to anyone in a public library setting unless they have already read everything by Didion and want to know what other people thought of her house or what cabin her brother-in-law stayed in when he was feeling sad.
chawkinsknell's review
When I found out Didion did not condone this biography, I just felt I couldn’t read it.
bkish's review
5.0
I cannot say enough compliments about this biography by Tracy Daugherty. It is Outstanding and should be a model for other biographers. Joan is a product of the various eras and places where she has lived. Tracy includes all of that covering events of sixties and seventies and current and life in NYC and in Los Angeles. He tells her story with objectivity and it is stark. She was a mixed bag and mostly admired. It is also about her husbands family - the Dunnes and her daughter with a bizarre name Quintana Roo. At the age of almost 80 she saw her husband and daughter die. As you would expect from Joan she is the survivor.
This man can write and tell a story...
This man can write and tell a story...