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Joan Didion

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Run River (Vintage International) Kindle Edition

by Joan Didion (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 258 ratings

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The iconic writer's electrifying first novel isa story of marriage, murder and betrayal that only she could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense—from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean.

Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience—a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California.

Print length

274 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Vintage
Publication date

February 23, 2011
File size

2850 KB
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Enhanced typesetting

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"There hasn't been another American writer of Joan Didion's quality since Nathanael West.... [She has] a vision as bleak and precise as Eliot's." —John Leonard, The New York Times

"A slant of vision that is arresting and unique . . . Didion might be an observer from another planet—one so edgy and alert that she ends up knowing more about our own world than we know ourselves."—Anne Tyler, New Republic

"A beautifully told first novel . . . written in prose both witty and imaginative." —The Times Literary Supplement (London)

From the Inside Flap

Joan Didion's electrifying first novel begins with a murder on the bank of the Sacramento River--a murder that is at once an act of vengeance and a blind attempt to shore up a disintegrating marriage. Out of that act, Didion constructs a tragic and beautifully nuanced work of fiction.

From the Back Cover

s electrifying first novel begins with a murder on the bank of the Sacramento River--a murder that is at once an act of vengeance and a blind attempt to shore up a disintegrating marriage. Out of that act, Didion constructs a tragic and beautifully nuanced work of fiction.

About the Author

Joan Didion was born in Sacramento in 1934 and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. After graduation, Didion moved to New York and began working for Vogue, which led to her career as a journalist and writer. Didion published her first novel, Run River, in 1963. Didion's other novels include A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), and The Last Thing He Wanted (1996).

Didion's first volume of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was published in 1968, and her second, The White Album, was published in 1979. Her nonfiction works include Salvador (1983), Miami (1987), After Henry (1992), Political Fictions (2001), Where I Was From (2003), We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live (2006), Blue Nights (2011), South and West (2017) and Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021). Her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005.

In 2005, Didion was awarded the American Academy of Arts & Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters. In 2007, she was awarded the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A portion of National Book Foundation citation read: "An incisive observer of American politics and culture for more than forty-five years, Didion's distinctive blend of spare, elegant prose and fierce intelligence has earned her books a place in the canon of American literature as well as the admiration of generations of writers and journalists." In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Barack Obama, and the PEN Center USA's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Didion said of her writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." She died in December 2021.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004KABEMO
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; 1st edition (February 23, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 23, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2850 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 274 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0679752501

Best Sellers Rank: #740,197 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #790 in Literary Short Stories
- #3,332 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
- #5,929 in Contemporary Literary Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.4 258 ratings

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Joan Didion

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Joan Didion was born in Sacramento in 1934 and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. After graduation, Didion moved to New York and began working for Vogue, which led to her career as a journalist and writer. Didion published her first novel, Run River, in 1963. Didion’s other novels include A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), and The Last Thing He Wanted (1996).

Didion’s first volume of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, was published in 1968, and her second, The White Album, was published in 1979. Her nonfiction works include Salvador (1983), Miami (1987), After Henry (1992), Political Fictions (2001), Where I Was From (2003), We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live (2006), Blue Nights (2011), South and West (2017) and Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021). Her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005.

In 2005, Didion was awarded the American Academy of Arts & Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters. In 2007, she was awarded the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A portion of National Book Foundation citation read: "An incisive observer of American politics and culture for more than forty-five years, Didion’s distinctive blend of spare, elegant prose and fierce intelligence has earned her books a place in the canon of American literature as well as the admiration of generations of writers and journalists.” In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Barack Obama, and the PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Didion said of her writing: "I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” She died in December 2021.

For more information, visit www.joandidion.org

Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

258 global ratings

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Frank Donnelly

An Excellent Debut Novel

Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2017

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This is a debut novel of Joan Didion published in 1963. It is about a family in California during the first half of the twentieth century. The story is also merged with the history and development of California after World War II.

The narrative started out slowly for me. The first scene is set in 1959. The story then proceeds to the beginning of this particular generation, some decades earlier, and then proceeds back, eventually to 1959. At first I was having trouble getting interested in the story. However the narrative grew on me and by the end, I found the story quite engrossing. There were also quite a few historical and literary references within the story that I researched and found quite interesting. It is obvious to me that Joan Didion is a well read and well educated author.

I purchased the book on Kindle and also the audiobook narration, performed by Holly Cate. Miss Cate was excellent. I often use audiobook to compensate for I consider to be my own "flawed inner narrator". Accordingly it is not easy for me to say how I would have felt about this book if I had read it without the assistance of Miss Cate.

In summary, I really enjoyed this book and audiobook very much. As this is the debut novel of Joan Didion, I intend to find her second novel, I think it is "Play It As It Lays", and read her works in the order she wrote them. Thank You...

9 people found this helpful

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Linda T. Cook

My first try of author Joan Didion, and I liked this book

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2014

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I was curious to try Joan Didion, who hails from my adopted home of the San Francisco Bay Area. And, to find this early novel set in the California Delta (an area little known by those not from the area) was for me, a bonus. What a wonderful sense of place! I was able to visualize place names mentioned (Tennessee Street, Vallejo; the Claremont Hotel, Berkeley; Rio Vista and the sloughs of the Delta) and therefore be right alongside the writer throughout the storytelling. However, I'm not sure how I would view the novel if I wasn't able to relate in this fashion to the geographic setting.

The characters are all very clearly broken people. I think this would make a good book club selection, as there would be much to discuss. I get the impression that Didion was not very taken with her California heritage (most of the characters in the book being descendants of original pioneer families who settled in California in the years of the Gold Rush). I think I will have to read more of this author.

3 people found this helpful

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A. Reader

Good Read

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2023

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Joan Didion’s first book. She was an astute observer of people and writes beautifully.

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Patricia Wilkinson

A quick reading fiction novel

Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2022

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Having read most of her essays, this novel is as detailed and descriptive. I would recommend to any Didion lover, as well as visitors to/ residents of Central California/ Sonoma. My grandmother lived there and my mom grew up in Auburn, and Didion's descriptions of the hops and the river are incredible.

2 people found this helpful

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Michael Wolfe

As Good a First Novel as First Novels Get

Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2006

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This first novel by one of modern America's prose-writing treasures is set in a part of California no one associates with the Golden State: the Sacramento Delta. The emotional and physical geography of the book blend seamlessly. Didion has since critiqued this book herself, in her much later prose reflection on California, "Where I Was From." She's a bit hard on her former self. This is a lucid, hard etched short novel on the same general theme as Tolstoi's "Anna Karenina": that is, how a uniquely unhappy family got that way. Didion is of an old California family. She takes no false pride in that, here or elsewhere. There is not a useless or spongy sentence in the whole book. Writers will be reminded of what they're supposed to be doing when they pick up a pen.

12 people found this helpful

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Jon Linden

Like A Meandering River

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2006

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This first fiction story by Didion surely catches her at the beginning of her career as a fiction writer. Copyrighted 1961, it is her first fiction novel. The Didion reader will recognize it as an early work. It is meandering, difficult to follow and in fact, in some points, downright boring.

However, the seeds of a brilliant writer and observer of human behavior still shine through. The book is about human interactions, set in early California between about 1920 and 1959, the story traces a family and their quest for land ownership in the young State of California.

Her concentration is on the manner in which love is expressed in the family. She concentrates on the strengths of the loves and on the incredible weaknesses. Her depiction of a family in emotional shambles is clear. Her elucidation of a family in every type of crisis except financial, is stark. And her characterization of the intense philandering of both the men and the women in the family is revealing and unexpected to some extent; yet fully expected in another.

The book is recommended to Didion readers and is of interest in seeing how her style was refined and honed as she went on in her writing career.

5 people found this helpful

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Landon Tesar

Run with it

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2022

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Great introduction to Joan Didion and an enlightening perspective on a transition in time and place. Can people act and behave as Didion allows? I guess they can.

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2022

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Enjoyed very much. Some boring parts but some brilliant parts.

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