''Slouching Towards Bethlehem'' is a 1968 collection of

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

s by

Joan Didion Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer. Along with Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese, she is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won ...

that mainly describes her experiences in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

during the 1960s. It takes its title from the poem " The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats. The contents of this book are reprinted in Didion's '' We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction'' (2006).

Collection's origins

According to Nathan Heller in ''The New Yorker'', the book came about this way: "In the spring of 1967, Joan Didion as ...engaged to write a regular column for the ''Saturday Evening Post''. ..At some point, an editor suggested that she had the makings of a collection, so she stacked her columns with past articles she liked (a report from Hawaii, the best of some self-help columns she'd churned out while a junior editor at ''Vogue''), set them in a canny order with a three-paragraph introduction, and sent them off. This was ''Slouching Towards Bethlehem''."

Title essay

The title essay describes Didion's impressions of the

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...

district of San Francisco during the neighborhood's heyday as a countercultural center. In contrast to the more

utopian A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...

image of the milieu promoted by

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

sympathizers then and now, Didion offers a rather grim portrayal of the goings-on, including an encounter with a pre-school-age child who was given

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...

by her parents. One critic describes the essay as "a devastating depiction of the aimless lives of the disaffected and incoherent young," with Didion positioned as "a cool observer but not a hardhearted one." Another scholar writes that the essay's form mirrors its content; the fragmented structure resonates with the essay's theme of societal fragmentation. In a 2011 interview, Didion discussed her technique of centering herself and her perspective in her non-fiction works like "Slouching Towards Bethlehem": "I thought it was important always for the reader, for me to place myself in the piece so that the reader knew where I was, the reader knew who was talking...At the time I started doing these pieces it was not considered a good thing for writers to put themselves front and center, but I had this strong feeling you had to place yourself there and tell the reader who that was at the other end of the voice." Didion originally wrote the piece as an assignment for ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely ...

'' in 1967. In her preface to the book, Didion writes, "I went to San Francisco because I had not been able to work in some months, had been paralyzed by the conviction that writing was an irrelevant act, that the world as I had understood it no longer existed. If I was to work again at all, it would be necessary for me to come to terms with disorder."

I. Life Styles in the Golden Land

*"Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream"
Appeared first in 1966 in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' under the title "How Can I Tell Them There's Nothing Left". *"John Wayne: A Love Song"
Appeared first in 1965 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. *"Where the Kissing Never Stops"
Appeared first in 1966 in ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' under the title "Just Folks at a School for Non-Violence". *"Comrade Laski, C.P.U.S.A. (M.-L.)"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. *"7000 Romaine, Los Angeles 38"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' under the title "The Howard Hughes Underground". *"California Dreaming"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. *"Marrying Absurd"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. *"Slouching Towards Bethlehem"
Appeared first on September 23, 1967, in ''The Saturday Evening Post''.

II. Personals

*"On Keeping a Notebook"
Appeared first in 1966 in '' Holiday''. *"On Self-Respect"
Appeared first in 1961 in ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

'' under the title "Self-respect: Its Source, Its Power". *"I Can't Get That Monster out of My Mind"
Appeared first in 1964 in ''

The American Scholar "The American Scholar" was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College at the First Parish in Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was invited to speak in recognition of his gro ...

''. *"On Morality"
Appeared first in 1965 in ''The American Scholar'' under the title "The Insidious Ethic of Conscience". *"On Going Home"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''.

III. Seven Places of the Mind

*"Notes from a Native Daughter"
Appeared first in 1965 in '' Holiday''. *"Letter from Paradise, 21° 19' N., 157° 52' W"
Appeared first in 1966 in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' under the title "Hawaii: Taps Over Pearl Harbor". *"Rock of Ages"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. *"The Seacoast of Despair"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. *"Guaymas, Sonora"
Appeared first in 1965 in ''

''. *"Los Angeles Notebook"
A section entitled "The Santa Ana" appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post''. *"Goodbye to All That"
Appeared first in 1967 in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' under the title "Farewell to the Enchanted City".

Reception

The book was immediately favorably received; its popularity continued to grow and become a "phenomenon" with a devoted readership in subsequent years. In ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', novelist and screenwriter

Dan Wakefield Dan Wakefield (born May 21, 1932) is an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. His best-selling novels, ''Going All the Way'' (1970) and ''Starting Over'' (1973), were made into feature films. He wrote the screenplay for ''Going All th ...

wrote, "Didion's first collection of nonfiction writing, ''Slouching Towards Bethlehem'', brings together some of the finest magazine pieces published by anyone in this country in recent years. Now that

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...

has pronounced that such work may achieve the stature of 'art,' perhaps it is possible for this collection to be recognized as it should be: not as a better or worse example of what some people call 'mere journalism,' but as a rich display of some of the best prose written today in this country."Dan Wakefield, "Places, People and Personalities," ''The New York Times Book Review'', June 21, 1968.

References

External links

Dan Wakefield in ''The New York Times Book Review'' on ''Slouching Towards Bethlehem''
{{Joan Didion 1968 non-fiction books American essay collections Essay collections by Joan Didion Works originally published in American magazines Books about the San Francisco Bay Area Books about California