The cause of her death was Parkinson’s disease, according to her publisher.
Renowned writer Joan Didion, who emerged as a distinctive voice in the “New Journalism” of the 1960s to launch a decades-long and lauded career as an author, essayist and screenwriter, died Thursday at her Manhattan home. She was 87. The cause of her death was Parkinson’s disease, according to her publisher. The New York Times first reported her death. Didion, born in California, was one of the leading lights in the changing of the literary guard that saw the emergence of writers Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson and Norman Mailer during the turbulent decade. Didion quickly became a well-known and highly-acclaimed writer, earning kudos for her elegant prose and acute social observations. Her skills were on full display in a pair of acclaimed collections of essays: “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” in 1968 and “The White Album” in 1979. Topics ran the gamut from Haight-Asbury hippies in her home state to reclusive magnate Howard Hughes to Los Angeles rock band The Doors. “Joan Didion was a legend,” said journalist and former California first lady Maria Shriver in a tweet. “She wrote her mind and heart out, & we all benefited.
