Remembering Joan Didion with Griffin Dunne

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2022

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just before Christmas this past year, the writer Joan Didion died. She was 87. Didion rose to fame for her journalism – she immersed herself in stories. In the late 60s, she broke through with Slouching Towards Bethlehem. In her career she covered a bunch of different topics – counter culture, war, immigration. She also wrote a handful of novels, a couple memoirs. We never got to interview Didion – she became a pretty private person in her last years. But in 2017, a documentary about her came out. The documentary was directed by Griffin Dunne, her nephew. Griffin Dunne is also an actor – he was in My Girl, the Martin Scorsese film After Hours, and the TV show This is Us. We remember the life of Joan Didion by revisiting this conversation with Griffin on the latest episode. We talked with him about the documentary, and the legacy of his aunt.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:12.3	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.
0:14.3	Just before Christmas this past year, the writer Joan Didian died.
0:18.7	She was 87.
0:20.4	Didian rose to fame for her journalism.
0:23.0	She immersed herself in stories.
0:25.0	In the late 60s, she broke through with slouching towards Bethlehem.
0:29.2	In her career, she covered all kinds of different stuff.
0:32.0	The counterculture war, immigration, she also wrote a handful of acclaimed novels and
0:37.0	some similarly acclaimed memoirs.
0:39.8	A couple of weeks ago, the New Yorkers Hilton Al's wrote of Didian.
0:43.8	Her genius and it was genius lay in her ability to combine the specific and the sweeping
0:49.4	in a single paragraph to understand that the details of why we hurt and alienate one another
0:54.5	based on skin color, sex, class, fame or politics are also what make us American.
1:01.3	I never got to interview Didian.
1:03.3	She became a pretty private person in her last years, but in 2017, there was a documentary
1:09.0	about her.
1:10.0	The film is called Joan Didian, the center will not hold.
1:13.4	It's an intimate look at Didian's writing and her personal life.
1:17.2	It paints a portrait of a person committed to their craft absolutely.
1:21.3	Someone who lived a life beset by tragedy.
1:24.4	In 2003, Didian's husband John Dunn died of a heart attack.
	...

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