The “Didion woman” has by now become a recognizable literary figure. Women who have misunderstood the promises of the past, they are habitues of a clearly personal wasteland, wandering along highways or through countries in an effort to blot out the pain of consciousness. They lose their men to suicide, divorce and cancer; their children to abortion, bad genes and history. They are outsiders, but they are also survivors, fatalists who keep on playing the game regardless of the odds.
— Michiko Kakutani, ‘Staking Out California’
(Source: The New York Times)
