 |
 |
INTERVIEWER
You said earlier that after The White Album you were tired of personal
writing and didn’t want to become Miss Lonelyhearts. You must be getting
a larger personal response from readers than ever with The Year of Magical
Thinking. Is that difficult?
DIDION
I have been getting a very strong emotional response to Magical Thinking.
But it’s not a crazy response; it’s not demanding. It’s people trying
to make sense of a fairly universal experience that most people don’t talk
about. So this is a case in which I have found myself able to deal with the
response directly.
INTERVIEWER
Do you ever think you might go back to the idea of doing little pieces
about New York?
DIDION
I don’t know. It is still a possibility, but my basic question about New York
was answered for me: it’s criminal.
INTERVIEWER
That was your question?
DIDION
Yes, it’s criminal.
INTERVIEWER
Do you find it stimulating in some way to live here?
DIDION
I find it really comfortable. During the time we lived in California, which
lasted twenty-four years, I didn’t miss New York after the first year. And after
the second year I started to think of New York as sentimental. There were
periods when I didn’t even come to New York at all. One time I realized that
I had been to Hong Kong twice since I had last been to New York. Then we
started spending more time in New York. Both John and I were really happy to have been here on 9/11. I can’t think of any place else I would have rather
been on 9/11, and in the immediate aftermath.
INTERVIEWER
You could have stayed in Sacramento forever as a novelist, but you started
to move out into the worlds of Hollywood and politics.
DIDION
I was never a big fan of people who don’t leave home. I don’t know why.
It just seems part of your duty in life.
Find the complete Joan Didion interview in The Paris Review Interviews, I available now from Picador.
To read Joan Didion's 1978 interview with The Paris Review click here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
