An exploration of the visual corollary to Didion’s life and work and the feeling that each generates in her admirers, detractors and critics―including artists from Helen Lundeberg to Diane Arbus, Betye Saar to Maren Hassinger, Vija Celmins and Andy Warhol

Published with Hammer Museum.

Joan Didion: What She Means is a richly layered tribute curated by writer Hilton Als—an intimate mosaic that traces Didion’s life, voice, and the lasting impression she left on readers, critics, and culture at large.

Presented chronologically, the book follows the two coasts that shaped her: California, where her sharp eye for Western rituals was born, and New York, where distance gave her the clarity to reexamine home. After years in Manhattan, Didion and her husband returned to Los Angeles in 1964, becoming celebrated screenwriters behind films like The Panic in Needle Park (1971) and A Star Is Born (1976), before ultimately settling back in New York two decades later.

From that East Coast vantage point, Didion produced some of her most incisive political writing, tackling subjects from the Central Park Five to national identity.

The book features work from more than 50 artists—from Brice Marden and Ed Ruscha to Betye Saar and Vija Celmins—spanning painting, film, photography, ephemera, and sculpture. It also includes three rare Didion pieces: “In Praise of Unhung Wreaths and Love” (1969), her often-quoted 1975 UC Riverside commencement address, and “The Year of Hoping for Stage Magic” (2007).