Written Interview by Brady Baylis, 03/17/2023

"From A Native Daughter's Notes: A Delusional California"

Joan Didion cemented herself as one of the most incisive American voices of the last century, both in her fiction and nonfiction alike. Her keen and cool observations of disorder and contradictions are the byproduct of her methodical attempts to make sense of society and herself. After some time and distance away from her native California, Didion found much about the state to discuss and debrief. In her reflection, Didion came to simultaneously expose and understand what she recognized as a characteristic Californian reliance on mythology, which allowed that state’s native sons and daughters, such as herself, to self-detach or desensitize themselves from various inevitable – though not always immediate – dangers and destruction. Didion noted that the inhospitable environment of, brutal journey to, and pressures of westward expansion in California each required its inhabitants to adopt mirages that provided a baseless sense of control and a protective detachment from the reality, without which they otherwise could not live. She asserted that delusion is a necessary element of life in a land that is naturally indifferent – if not hostile – to those living in it.

It is relatively easy to see how an author reflects on their experiences when writing fiction. Characters can often stand for important themes or people in an author’s life and the events symbolically represent how an author struggles to make meaning in their world. It can be harder to see how an author reflects when writing non-fiction. Through her very human social and political commentaries, Eddie O’Brien explores author and journalist Joan Didion by becoming “a fly on the wall” to experience her life and history firsthand.

Joan Didion’s life, O’Brien states, can be summarized by William Butler Yeats’s famous quote that “the center does not hold.” In her chaotic world, surrounded by monumental social change at the end of the 20th century, Didion becomes the center for her readers. “In some way she blends all the unrest, confusion, and anxiety for the reader,” O’Brien says, “she becomes that center for the reader.” Eddie O’Brien, who graduated with an English degree in the class of 2021, centered his own research around Didion’s complicated life and times.

To begin his research process, O’Brien considered “What are the ways that she is analyzing things that people think would be boring, such as the environment?” In order to study Joan Didion, who passionately observed her world, O’Brien passionately explored Didion’s world from the minutia to the grand scale. He explored Didion’s coverage of the Rolling Stones on tour, the Summer of Love, and even Linda Kasabian, who was a member of the Manson Family murders. 

Central to Joan Didion’s story is her split identity between her California roots and her New York City home. As he explored this paradigm shift in her life, O’Brien admitted “I was relishing in her homesickness because it took me to a completely different place.” He followed her to the Getty Museum’s virtual collections, old Vogue magazines, and Rolling Stone press coverage. “I got that niche” O’Brien explained with a laugh as he recollected paging through fire department statistics, earthquake monitoring websites, elementary school level explanations of earthquakes. 

One idea he kept returning to was how Joan Didion treated swimming pools. In many parts of the country, pools are a symbol of wealth. Pools demonstrate that one has the resources to heat pools in the often cold months and the ability to host friends outside. In California, however, pools are a symbol of control. A Californian with a pool knows that despite wildfires or earthquakes, one has a reservoir of water. This, O’Brien argues, was an example that Didion used to argue that Californians desensitized themselves from the state’s true social and climatic challenges.

Oftentimes in history it is tempting to see events as boring or mundane. Joan Didion’s example demonstrates that any time period is interesting, fascinating, and complex. “You have to be passionate about what you’re writing about,” O’Brien said, “Otherwise it would’ve been a paper to make a paper.” When writing, be a fly on the wall and find something small to study in depth. Keep looking for something fascinating, you will find a protagonist to become ensnared by.

Read Edmund O'Brien's piece, “From a Native Daughter's Notes: A Delusional California”, in the upcoming issue of Inventio Volume 8