We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine

From the publisher: "Joan Didion opened The White Album (1979) with what would become one of the most iconic lines in American literature: 'We tell ourselves stories in order to live.' Today, this phrase is deployed inspirationally, printed on T-shirts and posters, used as a battle cry for artists and writers. In truth, Didion was describing something much less rosy: our human tendency to manufacture delusions that might ward away our anxieties when society seems to spin off its axis. In this riveting cultural biography, New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion’s influence through the lens of American mythmaking. We Tell Ourselves Stories eloquently traces Didion’s journey from New York to her arrival in Hollywood as a screenwriter at the twilight of the old studio system. She paid the bills writing movie scripts like A Star Is Born, while her books propelled her to celestial heights of fame.More than a portrait of a writer, We Tell Ourselves Stories shines a new light on a legacy whose impact will be felt for generations."