The White Album is a 1979 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 Didion's 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).

I. The White Album

• "The White Album" (1968-78)

The White Album is an autobiographical literary essay detailing loosely related events in the author's life in the 1960s, primarily in Los Angeles, California. In the course of describing her ongoing psychological difficulties, Didion discusses Black Panther Party

Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....

 meetings, drug-related experiences, a Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

 recording session, various other interactions with LA musicians and cultural figures and several prison meetings with Linda Kasabian

Linda Kasabian

Linda Kasabian is a former member of Charles Manson's "family". She was the key witness in District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi's prosecution of Manson and his followers for the Tate-LaBianca murders, one of the highest-profile murder trials in American history.-Early life:Born as Linda Darlene...

, a former follower of Charles Manson

Charles Manson

Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...

 who was testifying against the group for the grisly Sharon Tate

Sharon Tate

Sharon Marie Tate was an American actress. During the 1960s she played small television roles before appearing in several films. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic performances, she was hailed as one of Hollywood's promising newcomers and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for...

 murders. Tate had been an acquaintance of Didion's. The murder trial cast a cloud of fear over Hollywood that seemed to propel many of Didion's insights. The impression conveyed is one of a city and nation pervaded by paranoia and detachment.

However, the ending, in which the author moves away from what she feels to be the unstable world of Hollywood and renovates an old house that possesses a few lingering associations with the 1960s, indicates that for her there is still the possibility of escaping the paranoia and unrest of that decade.

II. California Republic

• "James Pike
  James Pike
  James Albert Pike was an American Episcopal bishop, prolific writer, and one of the first mainline religious figures to appear regularly on television....
  
  , American" (1976)

The liberal Episcopalian bishop is viewed as representing the shallower aspects of American spirituality.

• "Holy Water" (1977)
• "Many Mansions" (1977)

An account of a lavish Governor's mansion commissioned by Ronald Reagan

Ronald 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....

, while Governor of California

Governor of California

The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...

, which was not used.

• "The Getty" (1977)

The Museum

Getty Villa

The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California, USA, is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum. The Getty Villa is an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria...

 is viewed as an extension of power

• "Bureaucrats" (1976)

The contemporary workings of Caltrans

California Department of Transportation

The California Department of Transportation is a government department in the U.S. state of California. Its mission is to improve mobility across the state. It manages the state highway system and is actively involved with public transportation systems throughout the state...

.

• "Good Citizens" (1968-70)

Californian politics

• "Notes Toward a Dreampolitik" (1968-70)

III. Women

• "The Women's Movement" (1972)

A critical essay which views second-wave feminism

Second-wave feminism

The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....

 as a Marxist

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 substitute for the proletariat

Proletariat

The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...

.

• "Doris Lessing
  Doris Lessing
  Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
  
  " (1971)

The author of The Golden Notebook

The Golden Notebook

The Golden Notebook is a 1962 novel by Doris Lessing. This book, as well as the couple that followed it, enters the realm of what Margaret Drabble in The Oxford Companion to English Literature has called Lessing's "inner space fiction", her work that explores mental and societal breakdown...

is seen as a 'nativist' writer in the manner of Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...

.

• "Georgia O'Keeffe
  Georgia O'Keeffe
  Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist.Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe first came to the attention of the New York art community in 1916, several decades before women had gained access to art training in America’s colleges and universities, and before any of its women artists...
  
  "

IV. Sojourns

• "In the Islands"
• "In Hollywood"
• "In Bed"
• "On the Road"
• "On the Mall"
• "In Bogotá"
• "At the Dam"

V. On the Morning After the Sixties

• "On the Morning After the Sixties"
• "Quiet Days in Malibu"

External links

• Discussion Questions about Didion's White Album
• Review of the White Album