Such an incredible essay (and book) and author. I highly recommend all of her essay writing. She captures the dark death of the California hippy era in a captivating and beautiful way.
Whenever I drive up the 5 leaving Los Angeles I get this strange sense of freedom and I think about Joan Didion and Philip Dick.
Among many memorable passages, I think I find this the most memorable:
> Right there you’ve got the ways that romanticism historically ends up in trouble, lends itself to authoritarianism. When the direction appears. How long do you think it’ll take for that to happen?” is a question a San Francisco psychiatrist asked me.
Whenever I drive up the 5 leaving Los Angeles I get this strange sense of freedom and I think about Joan Didion and Philip Dick.