Slouching Towards Bethlehem

So physically small, so temperamentally unobtrusive, and so neurotically inarticulate that people tended to forget that her presence ran counter to their best interests, Joan Didion slipped herself into the heart of the Sixties Revolution, only to slip out again with this savage masterpiece, which, since first publication in 1968, has been acknowledged as an unparalleled report on the state of America during those curious days. Now that some of the posturing and pronouncements of those times are being recycled, Didion's sobering reflections are timely once again: the future always looks good in the golden land, because no one remembers the past.