Didion reflects on how the stories she was told about a disappearing California never interrogated who enacted those changes. In Run River, this uninquisitive attitude pervades the novel’s nostalgia for prewar California. In the postwar years, people at once saw rapid industrial development as a positive and negative change. Though industry was booming and the economy appeared to be on the rise, there was still the persistent belief that California was becoming unrecognizable. People blamed this change on immigration because in the two decades following the war, the population increased on average by 50%. However, Didion notes that this percentage isn’t new in California’s history: In the decades between 1860 and 1930, the population consistently increased by 40 to 70%.

To illustrate the average Californian’s confused understanding of “old” California, Didion depicts the town of Gilroy, a once-prosperous farm town. Eventually, the town transformed into suburban sprawl for the growing tech industry. In 2001, Michael Bonfante opened an agricultural theme park to show visitors what the region looked like in the 1960s. One resident, who lived in the region for 15 years, was worried the park would further change the landscape. Similarly, Didion remembers when she and her brother were trying to develop some family land and their main opposition came from a man who had lived in the area for six months. She hypothesizes that “old” California is thus always the earliest version of whatever someone remembers of it.

Furthering this hypothesis, Didion describes a popular book by Victor Davis Hanson, The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer. Hanson is a fifth-generation farmer and academic in the San Joaquin Valley, living in the same house that was homesteaded by his first Californian ancestors. In this book, Hanson describes life as a Valley farmer and lauds the hard agrarian lifestyle of generations past. He laments the changes to the region that exist solely to support capitalistic enterprises. 

Didion analyzes Hanson’s criticisms, which seem to look backwards at history uncritically, sanitizing the conflicts in the region. She notes that Hanson identifies California’s prime as spanning from his family’s arrival to his own childhood. Didion quotes Hanson, who lists the new industries that have taken place of agriculture, many of which are national chains and franchises. 

Didion shares statistics concerning the poverty rate in the San Joaquin Valley, which is consistently higher than the national average. Part of this was due to immigration, but as one welfare relocation program in the region shows, even locals had difficulty finding jobs in these corporations.

Didion reflects on her childhood belief that no one in California was truly poor, as the whole idea of California was that a person had the skills and gusto to survive. Henry George echoed this belief, as to him the poor in California didn’t have the same hopelessness as elsewhere. Didion ultimately rejected this belief when she recognized the true impoverishment—financially and spiritually—in the towns of her adolescence. She saw that, first, the state couldn’t fund proper education, and second, the new major industry was prisons. For her, the glad acceptance of these prisons was simply another iteration of Californians’ reliance on the federal government, of opportunistically and uncritically selling out to whatever industry was booming.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association became a major lobbyer in the government, able to flex their size to get the legislation they wanted: Legislation that increased prison sentences and thus kept them in business. Don Novey was president of the union starting in 1980 and was a formidable personality. Prior to Novey’s election, the state only built 10 prisons in 100 years; in the decade following Novey’s election, they built 22 max and supermax prisons. Most of the staff for these prisons are brought in from out of state, and families of prisoners also travel into these communities and place more strain on the already overwhelmed social services. 

Employment opportunities in these prisons were further reduced by the implementation of “death fences,” which replaced human guards. The same years these fences were introduced, California spent more money on prisons than its universities, and its children were reading at the lowest levels in the country.

Didion opens with a quotation from Josiah Royce describing the character of early Californians. Royce depicts them as uncommonly selfish and careless, but also optimistic in their ability to create and govern a new state. 

Didion then recounts an event regarding the Matthew Kilgore Cemetery, where her early pioneer ancestors were buried. She used to visit the cemetery and noticed it gradually descending into disrepair, to the point that the mayor of the nearby town pleaded with locals to participate in a volunteer clean-up. Didion asked her mother about the cemetery and was told the family sold it. Didion wonders if this broke any kind of code, like not killing a rattlesnake. She referenced this family cemetery in Run River, as Lily’s father Walter believes burying one’s dead in a place is a sure sign of one’s ownership of the land. Didion wonders how her depiction of this cemetery’s significance would’ve changed had she already known that her family sold Kilgore Cemetery.

For much of its history, California had one of the highest asylum commitment rates, as its criterion for “insanity” was so broad. Unlike other states too, California didn’t implement therapeutic treatments, but it did perform most of the nation’s patient sterilizations. Didion finds it ironic that California thinks of itself as a land of freedom, yet they are so enthusiastic about social policing. A 1978 study by Richard W. Fox found 59% of patients in asylums in the early 20th century had simply been admitted because they were “peculiar.” Didion gives several examples of such patients, like a woman committed because she no longer enjoyed crocheting. Early settlers believed “madness” came with the speculative nature of Californian life, as well as the isolation of the state.

In old historic documents, Didion recalls finding a collection of pictures of asylums accompanied by an extensive list of the employees and their salaries. She visited some of these asylums as a child in Girl Scouts to sing for the patients, and the structures were constant sources of fear. Remembering the girls’ attempts at cheerful singing, she asks whether, if the option was to be committed oneself or be free, she would not send someone she loved away. For Didion, abandoning the weak was the very foundation of California’s identity—personal survival at any cost was the key lesson of all the stories she was taught growing up.

Didion opens with a quotation from Lincoln Steffens, who recalls seeing the first view of California as his father saw it, though he arrived by train. Didion remembers having a similar homecoming when she flew back to California from New York after her mother died in 2001. This death forced Didion to reflect on the dissonances of Californian identity that her mother embodied, like her dislike for but reliance on federal government welfare programs. Her mother was decidedly stern and opinionated on everything, but also displayed a nihilistic pessimism about the meaning of daily actions.

Didion recalls one of the few times she saw her mother cry during World War II while trying to get military housing in the Midwest. Her mother tried to act cheerful, and eventually they found space in a hotel. They also lived with a preacher’s family in Durham, North Carolina, where poor children ate dirt and her brother was almost attacked by a snake. The family got a house of their own in Colorado Springs, and Didion was finally able to go to school. She remembers a visit from her grandmother, accompanied by extravagant gifts, and she recalls some seemingly inapplicable lessons of survival her mother gave her, particularly when they were snowed in.

During the war, Didion’s mother dreamed about moving to Paris, though this never materialized. The issue wasn’t the riskiness of the endeavor—since most of her father’s work had been on the decidedly risky side—but the fact that he didn’t want to leave Sacramento out of duty to his family. Didion suspects that since a freak accident in his youth, her father considered himself a failure, and he always carried a palpable sadness. While Didion was in university, her father was placed under observation for depression, and she remembers visiting him with her mother and taking him out for long drives along the coast. Sometimes, he would walk along the Golden Gate Bridge on his own. Though Didion sees now how dangerous this was, she thought it was also very brave of both her father and mother. He died in 1992.

Not long after, Didion recalls driving to Berkeley with her mother for an academic ceremony. Her mother couldn’t recognize anything along the way and left partway through the ceremony because she was so upset by how old the men of her husband’s graduating class were. Afterwards, Didion left her mother and took a plane back to New York, feeling like she was abandoning her.

Didion recounts one summer in the early 1970s when she brought her young daughter, Quintana, to Sacramento to visit her grandparents. Since the day was so hot, Didion and her mother brought Quintana into Old Sacramento to have lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant. Quintana walked along the wooden boardwalk ahead of Didion, her pinafore and straw hat fitting perfectly into the scene. 

Didion was going to tell Quintana that her ancestors had a shop on old Front Street, but she realized this had no actual significance, since she was adopted. In this moment, all the history Didion was taught as being so intrinsic to who she was appeared unimportant—the only thing that mattered was her daughter.

After her mother’s death, Didion and her brother divided up her belongings amongst themselves and their children. Didion kept a shawl her mother wore to many weddings, as well as a big box of photos and letters. She opened the box months later in New York, and she lists the kinds of family photos and letters that were inside. Her mother kept letters Didion herself had sent from university, in which she described her homesickness for Sacramento. She sent special items to family members and friends and put the box in a closet.

Didion recounts the last time she saw her mother eight weeks before her death. As Didion was about to leave the house, her mother insisted that she bring her a silver box. From this box, Didion’s mother gave Quintana a silver serving spoon and gave Didion a silver ladle. Didion didn’t want to take the ladle that her mother was obviously attached to, but her mother insisted, knowing that she didn’t have much longer and wanted it protected.