Let Me Tell You What I Mean

Let Me Tell You What I Mean—a new collection of a dozen Joan Didion essays, originally published from 1968 to 2000—reminds readers that while youth culture, political leaders, and modes of media delivery may change, our underlying drives and delusions seldom do.

Reading Didion is especially refreshing at a time when political tribalism and the pressures of social media have brought a canned quality to so much cultural writing. Tackling subjects as diverse as Gamblers Anonymous, the Reagans, and the Martha Stewart empire, Didion never comes across as someone who approaches her subjects with a predetermined angle or who worries about how her opinions and observations will be greeted by some tribunal on wrongthink.

Still, something vital is missing