The Last Love Song, Tracy Daugherty
The Last Love Song, Tracy Daugherty
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The Last Love Song
A Biography of Joan Didion

Author: Tracy Daugherty

Narrator: Bernadette Dunne

Unabridged: 26 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/10/2015

Synopsis

In The Last Love Song, Tracy Daugherty, the critically acclaimed author of Hiding Man (a New York Times Notable book) and Just One Catch, delves deep into the life of distinguished American author and journalist Joan Didion in this, the first printed biography published about her life.Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction. Some of her most notable work includes Slouching towards Bethlehem, Run River, and The Year of Magical Thinking, a National Book Award winner short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. Daugherty takes listeners on a journey back through time, following a young Didion in Sacramento through to her adult life as a writer. Daugherty interviews those who know and knew her personally while maintaining a respectful distance from the reclusive literary great.The Last Love Song reads like fiction; lifelong fans and listeners learning about Didion for the first time will be enthralled with this impressive tribute.

About Tracy Daugherty

Tracy Daugherty is distinguished professor of English and creative writing emeritus at Oregon State University and the author of several acclaimed literary books, including the New York Times bestselling The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion. Daugherty’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the Paris Review, and McSweeney’s.

About Bernadette Dunne

Bernadette Dunne is the winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and has twice been nominated for the prestigious Audie Award. She studied at the Royal National Theatre in London and the Studio Theater in Washington, DC, and has appeared at the Kennedy Center and off Broadway.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Hank on January 14, 2018

I originally passed on reading this, because I was, after so many years, kind of Joaned-out, and also people said there was nothing much new in it, which is indeed true -- if you've made a habit of deeply reading and knowing what there is to know about Joan Didion, there are very few fresh revelatio......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on September 13, 2015

Every hour devoted to this write-around was another hour stolen from the time I have left to revisit all the writing that made me a Didion acolyte in the first place.......more

Goodreads review by Andrea on November 25, 2015

I'm not 100% sure why I read this book, which is a fair description of how I felt while I was reading it. I ploughed through it because I borrowed it from the library, and there were holds on it. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had picked it up when the mood struck me. As many reviewers have......more

Goodreads review by James on November 16, 2020

While I was reading this biography of Joan Didion, Donald Trump spoke at a news conference after the recent election and complained that his poll observers at one location were required to stand so far away from the counting process that they had to use binoculars to monitor it. And so I imagined Tr......more

Goodreads review by Jill on December 23, 2021

The author Joan Didion has always seemed to be fragile. Physically fragile, emotionally fragile, and, probably, literary fragile. Her writing seemed to careen between "precious" and "tough" - often in the same book or magazine article. Married to the author John Gregory Dunne, they were the parents......more

Quotes

“Daugherty gives us six hundred pages of excellent literary criticism and painstaking detail about her personal life.” Daily Beast

“A comprehensive, absorbing look at the life of iconic author Joan Didion…by a top-notch biographer.” Good Housekeeping

“Thoughtful and ambitious…his biography evinces a deep appreciation of her skills and idiosyncrasies…Mr. Daugherty expertly dissects Ms. Didion’s preoccupation with narratives—not just with the techniques of storytelling but also with the subtexts undergirding the personal and political story lines mapped in her work.” New York Times Book Review

“If you’ve ever wondered what goes on inside the mind of Joan Didion, you’ll love biographer Tracy Daugherty’s juicy tell-all.” InStyle

“Daugherty tasks himself with separating the version of Didion we’ve come to know through her work from the real one and determining whether ‘the life reveal[s] the art, or the art the life’…He has a firm, clear grasp on her writing—how it evolved, how it fits into (and helped shape) the landscape of American literature, how her language illuminates her worldview…the book conjures as vivid a picture of this living legend as we are likely to get.” Entertainment Weekly

“Compelling…What Daugherty does exceptionally well is conjure a psychic atmosphere, grounding our understanding of Didion in her child-of-the-West perspective.” Vogue.com

“Growing up in Sacramento, Didion imagined being a writer,‘which usually involved having a quote unquote Manhattan penthouse. This hefty work is the first of the literary icon ever written.” Mental Floss

“If you want a taste for what it was like to be a high-flying journalist at the apex of New Journalism and a lauded screenwriter during a Hollywood golden age, or if you just want to know the gossip behind all the troubled marriage innuendos haunting The White Album, then this is your book.” Vulture.com

“The Last Love Song is a smart and gratifying book that gives us Didion’s world and brings us closer to her way of seeing it.” Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Didion lovers, of whom there are many, will find [The Last Love Song] enjoyable.” Seattle Times

Awards

  • Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week
  • Bustle Pick
  • Esquire Pick
  • A Flavorwire Pick
  • Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books
  • San Francisco Chronicle Best Book
  • Oregon Book Award
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