Authority: The Most Misunderstood Idea in America.

KENNEDY, Eugene and Sara C. Charles. [Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne].

$1,250.00

Item Number: 141084

New York: The Free Press, 1997.

First edition of  authors’ work on power, authority, and influence. Octavo, original half cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the authors on the front free endpaper, “For John and Joan with the affectionate good wishes and, more than that, our real love – Gene and Sally.” The recipients, American journalists Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne met in the late 1950s when Didion was working for Vogue. They were soon married and both picked up writing work from book publishers and magazines, traveled together on journalism assignments, and established a working pattern that served for the next 40 years. They had a constant advising, consulting, and editing collaboration. Critically acclaimed bestselling books followed for each, including Dunne’s The Studio and Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Didion’s work, in particular, engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle, California culture, and California history. Writing at the same time Bradlee was acting as executive editor of The Washington Post, Didion gained a reputation as a pioneer of the New Journalism style of news writing and recognition for her sensational novels, including her first nonfiction book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a collection of magazine pieces about her experiences in California. In 2005, Didion won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir of the year following the death of her husband. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Amy McHenry. From the library of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne.