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After Henry (book)
Encyclopedia
After Henry is a 1992
book of essays by Joan Didion
.
The entire contents of this book are reprinted in We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live
: Collected Nonfiction (2006).
.
's style of government, mostly through the character of his wife
and other handlers. Didion says that the Reagans maintained, in their years in Sacramento
and Washington, the sheltered, disconnected lifestyle of "actors on location," living in housing provided by the studio. A refrain in the piece is the public-relations language of Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan
, putting words to the president's grandiose but vague political vision: "Where brave heroes blank, and during those terrible last days blank..."
First appeared in 1989 in The New York Review of Books
.
. Didion takes as her central image a campaign stop in which Dukakis, for the benefit of news cameras, tossed a baseball with an aide on the tarmac of an airport runway, an event duly reported as news by a number of journalists "all of whom believed it to be a setup and yet most of whom believed that only an outsider, someone too 'naive' to know the rules of the game, would so describe it."
First appeared in the October 27, 1988 issue of The New York Review of Books
.
in 1988, describes the American political strategy of using brief engagements in foreign wars as "sideshows," treating "other nations as changeable scrims in the theatre of domestic politics." Didion states that, when Bush toured Israel
and Jordan
, the Jordanian government was instructed to provide a camel for the background of every photo opportunity.
First appeared in 1988 in The New York Review of Books
.
, written after the release of Hearst's 1982 memoir Every Secret Thing . Didion recounts the history as a Californian opera, and Hearst as an emblematic Californian character in her lack of self-analysis or sense of connection to history, and she illustrates this point with a quote from a survivor of the Donner Party
: "Don't let this letter dishearten anybody, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can." Didion would return to this quote in her longer consideration of Californian character, Where I Was From
, in 2003
.
First appeared in 1982 in The New York Review of Books
.
.
First appeared in partial form in the magazine New West in 1979, and in The New Yorker
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles" in 1989.
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
mayor Tom Bradley
, focusing on his dealings with real-estate developers and the role of racism and anti-Semitism in his final, successful campaign against a Jewish opponent.
First appeared in 1989 in The New Yorker
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
drug cartels: the wife of a man alleged to have been a high-level dealer was accused of murdering a small-time movie producer. The murder was said to have been over anticipated profits from The Cotton Club
, and the supposed connection to that movie's producer Robert Evans
gave the case a very faint air of celebrity, as did the fact that two accused accomplices in the murder were bodyguards of Larry Flynt
. Rumors flew that the case would be made into a book or movie. Didion notes that everyone involved was motivated by unrealized fantasies, from the criminals who killed for a stake in a flop to prosecutors and reporters hoping that this obscure, sordid crime could itself be turned into a glamorous Hollywood production.
First appeared in 1989 in The New Yorker
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
newspaper.
First appeared in 1990 in The New Yorker
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
, sensational 1989 New York City rape case, to examine racial tensions in New York, and the way that the city's fabric of corruption (incorporated by its founding fathers) is obscured and sustained by a sentimentality for the narratives it tells about itself, whether they are true or not. She reviews the differences in the way the case was reported in white- and black-owned media, and contrasts it with cases involving black victims.
First appeared in 1991 in The New York Review of Books
.
1992 in literature
The year 1992 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Ben Aaronovitch - Transit*Julia Álvarez - How the García Girls Lost Their Accents*Paul Auster - Leviathan*Iain Banks - The Crow Road...
book of essays by Joan Didion
Joan Didion
Joan Didion is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation...
.
The entire contents of this book are reprinted in We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction is a 2006 collection of nonfiction by Joan Didion. It includes the full content of her first seven volumes of nonfiction: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Salvador, Miami, After Henry, Political Fictions, and Where I Was...
: Collected Nonfiction (2006).
"After Henry"
A personal memorial for Henry Robbins, who was Didion's friend and editor from 1966 until he died in 1979. The essays collected in this book were written after Henry's death.Washington
Two of the three essays from the "Washington" section of the book were republished in 2001 as part of Didion's book Political FictionsPolitical Fictions
Political Fictions is a 2001 book of essays by Joan Didion on the American political process.-Essays:Written for The New York Review of Books between October 1988 and October 2000, the collection includes three essays previously published as the "Washington" section of After Henry.-Content:Didion...
.
"In the Realm of the Fisher King"
Analyzes Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's style of government, mostly through the character of his wife
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
and other handlers. Didion says that the Reagans maintained, in their years in Sacramento
Sacramento
Sacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta...
and Washington, the sheltered, disconnected lifestyle of "actors on location," living in housing provided by the studio. A refrain in the piece is the public-relations language of Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan
Peggy Noonan
Peggy Noonan is an American author of seven books on politics, religion, and culture and a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal...
, putting words to the president's grandiose but vague political vision: "Where brave heroes blank, and during those terrible last days blank..."
First appeared in 1989 in The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
.
"Insider Baseball"
Chronicles the failed 1988 presidential campaign of democratic candidate Michael DukakisMichael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
. Didion takes as her central image a campaign stop in which Dukakis, for the benefit of news cameras, tossed a baseball with an aide on the tarmac of an airport runway, an event duly reported as news by a number of journalists "all of whom believed it to be a setup and yet most of whom believed that only an outsider, someone too 'naive' to know the rules of the game, would so describe it."
First appeared in the October 27, 1988 issue of The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
.
"Shooters Inc."
On the occasion of Bush's electionUnited States presidential election, 1988
The United States presidential election of 1988 featured no incumbent president, as President Ronald Reagan was unable to seek re-election after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Reagan's Vice President, George H. W. Bush, won the Republican nomination, while the...
in 1988, describes the American political strategy of using brief engagements in foreign wars as "sideshows," treating "other nations as changeable scrims in the theatre of domestic politics." Didion states that, when Bush toured Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, the Jordanian government was instructed to provide a camel for the background of every photo opportunity.
First appeared in 1988 in The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
.
"Girl of the Golden West"
An essay on Patty HearstPatty Hearst
Patricia Campbell Hearst , now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber....
, written after the release of Hearst's 1982 memoir Every Secret Thing . Didion recounts the history as a Californian opera, and Hearst as an emblematic Californian character in her lack of self-analysis or sense of connection to history, and she illustrates this point with a quote from a survivor of the Donner Party
Donner Party
The Donner Party was a group of American pioneers who set out for California in a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada...
: "Don't let this letter dishearten anybody, never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can." Didion would return to this quote in her longer consideration of Californian character, Where I Was From
Where I Was From
Where I Was From is a 2003 book of essays by Joan Didion. It considers aspects of the history of California, as well as her own and her family's history in that state.-Didion on Where I Was From:...
, in 2003
2003 in literature
The year 2003 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Peter Ackroyd - The Clerkenwell Tales*Atsuko Asano - No...
.
First appeared in 1982 in The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
.
"Pacific Distances"
A disparate series of reflections on Didion's own experiences in the Pacific, centering on the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
- The first section recalls her culture shock at moving from New York to Los Angeles, at first finding the "absence of narrative" in L.A.'s public culture "a deprivation" but after two years realizing "I had come to find narrative sentimental."
- The second section reviews her career at Berkeley, first as a writing student in 1954 and then as a writing teacher in 1975.
- The third section is about the history of the experimental TRIGA nuclear reactorTRIGATRIGA is a class of small nuclear reactor designed and manufactured by General Atomics. The design team for TRIGA was led by the physicist Freeman Dyson.TRIGA is the acronym of Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics.-Design:...
at Berkeley and Didion's sense as a child of the beginning of the atomic ageAtomic AgeThe Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is a phrase typically used to delineate the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear bomb Trinity on July 16, 1945...
. - The fourth section is about the laserLaserA laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
project at Livermore LabsLawrence Livermore National LaboratoryThe Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , just outside Livermore, California, is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center founded by the University of California in 1952...
, where nuclear weapons were also developed. - The fifth section chronicles an extended stay in Honolulu, where Didion rented a house in the Kahala district during a 1980 garbage strike.
- The final section crosses the Pacific to Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, where 300,000 refugees from the Vietnam WarVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
fled in late 1970s and were forcibly repatriated to VietnamVietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
in 1991.
First appeared in partial form in the magazine New West in 1979, and in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles" in 1989.
"Los Angeles Days"
First appeared in 1988 in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
"Down at City Hall"
Considers the political longevity of five-term Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
mayor Tom Bradley
Tom Bradley (politician)
Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley was the 38th Mayor of Los Angeles, California, serving in that office from 1973 to 1993. He was the first and to date only African American mayor of Los Angeles...
, focusing on his dealings with real-estate developers and the role of racism and anti-Semitism in his final, successful campaign against a Jewish opponent.
First appeared in 1989 in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
"L.A. Noir"
Chronicles a murder trial suggesting links between Hollywood and ColombiaColombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
drug cartels: the wife of a man alleged to have been a high-level dealer was accused of murdering a small-time movie producer. The murder was said to have been over anticipated profits from The Cotton Club
The Cotton Club (film)
The Cotton Club is a 1984 crime-drama, centered on a famed Harlem jazz club of the 1930s, the Cotton Club.The movie was co-written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, choreographed by Henry LeTang, and starred Richard Gere, Diane Lane, and Gregory Hines...
, and the supposed connection to that movie's producer Robert Evans
Robert Evans (film producer)
Robert Evans is an American film producer, best known for his work on Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, and Chinatown.-Early life and acting career:...
gave the case a very faint air of celebrity, as did the fact that two accused accomplices in the murder were bodyguards of Larry Flynt
Larry Flynt
Larry Claxton Flynt, Jr. is an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications . In 2003, Arena magazine listed him as the number one on the "50 Powerful People in Porn" list....
. Rumors flew that the case would be made into a book or movie. Didion notes that everyone involved was motivated by unrealized fantasies, from the criminals who killed for a stake in a flop to prosecutors and reporters hoping that this obscure, sordid crime could itself be turned into a glamorous Hollywood production.
First appeared in 1989 in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
"Fire Season"
Describes southern California's annual season of wildfires, the role of the Santa Ana winds, and the way in which fire is a part of the rhythm of a Californian view of the world.First appeared in 1989 in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
"Times Mirror Square"
Reviews the history of the Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
newspaper.
First appeared in 1990 in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
under the title "Letters from Los Angeles."
"Sentimental Journeys"
Uses the Central Park joggerTrisha Meili
The Central Park Jogger case involved an assault and rape that took place in New York City's Central Park on April 19, 1989. The victim was Trisha Meili. Five juvenile males were tried and convicted for the crime...
, sensational 1989 New York City rape case, to examine racial tensions in New York, and the way that the city's fabric of corruption (incorporated by its founding fathers) is obscured and sustained by a sentimentality for the narratives it tells about itself, whether they are true or not. She reviews the differences in the way the case was reported in white- and black-owned media, and contrasts it with cases involving black victims.
First appeared in 1991 in The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
.