Notes to John

Joan Didion is an American author, writer, and journalist. She was born in 1934 in Sacramento, California. Because her father was in the army, Didion and her family traveled throughout Didion’s early childhood. A bookish child, Didion later identified herself as a perpetual outsider because of how often she and her family moved. Didion went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley. After her graduation in 1956, Didion entered and won an essay contest hosted by Vogue, and the magazine offered her a job in New York. Didion relocated to the city and worked for Vogue for seven years. While there, she met and became close with John Gregory Dunne, whom she married in 1964.

Didion and John eventually moved back to California, where they created a life together for the next 20 years. Both writers, the couple’s work was often entangled. They had separate careers, but they collaborated on several feature films, including The Panic in Needle Park, A Star Is Born, and Up Close & Personal. Amidst Didion’s screenwriting and authorial career, she and John adopted their daughter Quintana Roo Dunne. Didion’s experiences as a mother appear throughout her works of fiction and nonfiction and remain the central focus of Notes to John, which explores the challenges of Navigating Mother-Daughter Relationships.