“When I was in fact a child, six and seven and eight years old, I was utterly baffled by the enthusiasm with which my cousin Brenda, a year and a half younger, accepted her mother's definition of her as someone who needed to go to bed at six-thirty and finish every bite of three vegetables, one of them yellow, with every meal.”

American writer and journalist of the late 20th century, Didion’s work is defined by its sharp, unflinching prose and exploration of cultural disorientation. She is best known for her essays on California’s shifting identity, her memoir *The Year of Magical Thinking* on grief, and her novel *Play It As It Lays*, which dissects existential detachment.