Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Run, River | 1963 |
| Play It as It Lays | 1970 |
| A Book of Common Prayer | 1977 |
| Democracy | 1984 |
| The Last Thing He Wanted | 1996 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Slouching Towards Bethlehem | 1968 |
| The White Album | 1979 |
| Salvador | 1983 |
| Miami | 1987 |
| After Henry | 1992 |
| Political Fictions | 2001 |
| Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 | 2003 |
| Where I Was From | 2003 |
| The Year of Magical Thinking | 2005 |
| Blue Nights | 2011 |
| South and West: From a Notebook | 2017 |
| Let Me Tell You What I Mean | 2021 |
| Notes to John | 2025 |
About Joan Didion
Joan Didion (born 5 December 1934 in Sacramento, California; died 23 December 2021 in New York City) was an American writer and journalist, regarded as one of the pioneers of New Journalism. She wrote five novels, among them “Play It as It Lays”, and non-fiction that runs from the essay collection “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” to the memoir “The Year of Magical Thinking”.
Didion took a BA in English at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. In her final year she won the Prix de Paris essay contest run by Vogue, which brought a job at the magazine, and over seven years she rose from promotional copywriter to associate feature editor. Her first novel, “Run, River” (1963), about a Sacramento family coming apart, was written there. She married the writer John Gregory Dunne in 1964, moved with him to Los Angeles, and in 1966 they adopted a daughter, Quintana Roo.
“Slouching Towards Bethlehem” (1968) gathered her magazine pieces on California and the 1960s counterculture. “Play It as It Lays” (1970), set in Hollywood, was later included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. “A Book of Common Prayer” followed in 1977 and a second essay collection, “The White Album”, in 1979. With Dunne she wrote screenplays including “The Panic in Needle Park” (1971), “A Star Is Born” (1976) and “Up Close & Personal” (1996).
In the 1980s and 1990s she turned to politics and foreign policy. “Salvador” (1983) came out of a two-week trip to El Salvador, and “Miami” (1987) examined that city’s communities. The novels “Democracy” (1984) and “The Last Thing He Wanted” (1996) belong to the same period, as does the essay collection “After Henry” (1992). The couple moved to New York in 1988. “Political Fictions” (2001) won the George Polk Book Award.
Dunne died of a heart attack on 30 December 2003 while Quintana was in intensive care. “The Year of Magical Thinking” (2005), Didion’s account of the year that followed, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and she adapted it for a Broadway production in 2007 with Vanessa Redgrave. Quintana died in August 2005, and “Blue Nights” (2011) is about her. Didion received the National Humanities Medal in 2013. “Notes to John”, a journal from 1999 addressed to Dunne, was published posthumously in 2025.