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It's hard to convey to the present generation what literary figures like Didion, who defined a time and a literary style, once meant. We just don't have such people in our culture anymore. The very role itself, much less the talent, just doesn't exist.

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The New York Times

@nytimes

Dec 23, 2021

Breaking News: Joan Didion has died at age 87. Her sharp dispatches on California and tough, terse novels forged a distinct new voice in American writing. nyti.ms/3yV6aHR

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Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth)

@antoniogm

Didion penned the best portrait of the wild 1980s Miami of my childhood, and the scheming and imperious Cuban exiles who populated it. Told by a wide-eyed New Yorker, of course, but still....a snapshot of a budding metropolis and its febrile origins.

amazon.com

Miami

5:51 PM · Dec 23, 2021

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Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth)

@antoniogm

Dec 23, 2021

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@antoniogm

'Miami' opens at Woodlawn Park Cemetery, where many a generation of Cuban exile, victims of volatile politics, were laid to rest instead of the island that obsessed them. (My family's plot is a stone's throw from the lapidary flags described there.)

Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth)

@antoniogm

Dec 23, 2021

Such a figure would be impossible now. Were a New York writer to venture to Miami now it would be 'LatinX' this and that, and a bunch of parochial Anglo projection about a world they couldn't understand for being completely outside their narrow worldview.

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135 pages… I’ll chew that up quickly. Any other Diddion recommends for the unread?

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Seeking a recommend here from the author of CM… which I’m 30 pages from finishing!