Joan Didion and Sloane Crosley | 11-21-2011 | LIVE from the NYPL

LIVE from the NYPL | Recorded live at the New York Public Library, Celeste Bartos Forum, November 21, 2011.
Joan Didion dwells on mortality throughout her most recent memoir, Blue Nights, in which she tries to cope with, or at least understand, the loss of her daughter, Quintana Roo. Didion is well-known as a fiction author, playwright and, most notably, non-fiction essayist. She is widely considered one of the best American writers of the past fifty years. Now, Didion’s last two memoirs, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, have focused on the deaths of her husband and daughter-hesitantly allowing us a glimpse into her carefully edited makeshift diary. In Blue Nights, she scribes intensely detailed family moments and reflects on these, often to no significant realization except that they’re over.

[@beatrizaquino2694]

RIP Joan Didion

[@ourvoices2012]

So simple and honest in her answers

[@stephanieiv1163]

Simple being not the first word that comes to mind when speaking about Joan Didion, she still is. Straight. Precise.

[@constancemiller3753]

"Seven words do not yet define me." Joan Didion, observant badass

[@dianawindham2744]

Total honesty unedited with emotion. Feeling saved for writing.!

[@perrydear6306]

Honestly...the interviewer is terrible, Inane questions, giggling, constantly talking about her thoughts instead of getting Didion/s thoughts. So bad so disappointing.

[@calisongbird]

Yes, I commented similarly above. The interviewer was awful.

[@7catsmom959]

She really is unspeakably awful ( the interviewer).

[@jtrain5615]

I was just going to write that.

[@shanedm3396]

I think she did a fair job in filling in the gaps caused by Didion’s declining mind.

[@brutusalwaysminded]

R.I.P.

[@perrydear6306]

Im up to 8 minutes and still the interviewer drones on without Didion speaking. Lets see if it gets better.

[@dritch2472]

11:41 in and I'm dying

[@calisongbird]

This interviewer Sloane Crosley is absolutely insufferable, bordering on unprofessional, with her giggling, fawning, and verbosity. Thank God Joan rose above it, in true Didion form. RIP Joan Didion.

[@elizabethcarson2074]

genius with grace