The Last Love Song by Tracy Daugherty audiobook

The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion

By Tracy Daugherty
Read by Bernadette Dunne

Blackstone Publishing 9781250010025
26.72 Hours • • 1
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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.

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Summary

Summary

A New York Times bestseller

Finalist for a 2017 Oregon Book Award

An Esquire pick for Summer Reading

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2015

A Bustle Pick for Summer 2015 Best Nonfiction

A Flavorwire Pick for August Must-Read Books

A Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week

A Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2015 for Nonfiction

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.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

“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
“Engaging…If we are accustomed to thinking of Didion as the moody, stylish intellectual—nervous and frail and more alluring for it—a broader picture emerges here of a fighter and analyst, a very hard worker and a bit of a badass.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“A full, vibrant picture of Didion…Daugherty’s book ultimately succeeds because of his ability to see Didion not as an immutable icon of cool, but as someone whose ideas and whose writing shifted constantly, radically.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“In this engrossing biography of exceptional vibrancy, velocity, and perception, Daugherty astutely elucidates Didion’s ever-evolving artistic explorations and political critiques as she interrogates the meaning and ‘intelligibility’ of literature and life. He also portrays this intensely candid, searching writer as endlessly hardworking, brilliantly innovative, and as sensitive as a tuning fork or divining rod, trembling with the intensity of it all, perfect in pitch, stunning in revelation.” —Booklist (starred review)
“An eloquent work on the life of Joan Didion, fashioning her story as no less than the rupture of the American narrative…[a] wonderfully engaging biography.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A monumental, novelistic examination of Joan Didion’s life and career…Daugherty crafts a complex, intricately shaded portrait of a woman also known for her inner toughness and intellectual rigor. This landmark work renders a nuanced analysis of a literary life, lauds Didion’s indelible contributions to American literature and journalism (especially new journalism), and documents a ‘style [that] has become the music of our time.’” —Publishers Weekly

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Author

Author Bio: Tracy Daugherty

Author Bio: Tracy Daugherty

Tracy Daugherty is the highly acclaimed author of published novels, short-story collections, and a book of personal essays. His biographies of Donald Barthelme and Joseph Heller received rave reviews. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, he is distinguished professor of English and creative writing at Oregon State University.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : Digital Download, Digital Rental, CD, MP3 CD
Category: Nonfiction/Biography & Autobiography
Runtime: 26.72
Audience: Adult
Language: English

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