Where I Was From (Vintage International) - Softcover

"Compelling. . . . A love song to the place where her family has lived for generations, but a love song full of questions and doubts." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"An arresting amalgam of memoir and historical timeline. . . . Exquisitely crafted, as subtle as the slow waking from a pleasant dream." -The Baltimore Sun"One beautiful sentence follows another. . . . This is a book about history, about what we learn from genealogy and history books, novels and old newspapers, and how we square all that with what we see around us. . . . Didion has remained a clearheaded and original writer all her long life." -Malcolm Jones, Newsweek"Succinct and quite beautiful. . . . Its rewards are many. If anyone needs further confirmation that she is one of the finest essayists currently at work, this book will nail it." -The Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer"One of the most recognizable-and brilliant-literary styles to emerge in America during the past four decades. . . . [Didion is] a great American writer." -The New York Times Book Review "Didion has written a brave little book . . . a fine book that must be read with as much care it was written. . . . [Didion is] an implacably honest writer." -Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post"Valediction and elegy alike, Where I Was From is a storm-tossed book. Its history is dense . . . its prose sharp, direct and chiseled." -The Los Angeles Times Book Review"Eloquent, spare, and rendered without sentiment." -Boston Globe"[Didion is] a latter-day Walt Whitman, singing of America by singing of herself." -Slate.com "Joan Didion is a brilliant explicator of the American political and cultural consciousness." -Rocky Mountain News"Many of us have tried, and failed, to master [Didion's] gift for the single ordinary deflating word, the word that spins an otherwise flat sentence through five degrees of irony. But her sentences could only be hers." -Michael Gorra, Chicago Tribune"[A] fascinating, informative, obscure-and yes, moving-little book." -San Jose Mercury News"A bracing mix of personal and public history." -Benjamin Kunkel, Newsday"Odd, elliptical and ultimately revealing. . . . Didion discovers the exact locus where geography and personal journey intersect, and has produced a work as compelling and enigmatic as its subjects." -Time Out New York"Where I Was From is a beautifully written and intensely personal tome. . . . One of the country's most intelligent writers . . . Ms. Didion's prose is like a razor cutting straight to the bone." -New York Sun"[Didion's] appraisal is cool, her eye is sharp, and her turn of phrase is wicked." -Time"How odd that bad news can be so much fun to read. Her essays are as sinewy as her novels, written in the same ice-pick/laser-beam prose." -Harper's

The great American essayist reassesses her life and work, exploring American ideals of independence and self-reliance by probing her own life and those of her relatives. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.