“On Self-Respect” returns to Didion’s journal-keeping as she argues against her younger self and for self-respect as a means of finding personal freedom. “On Keeping a Notebook” looks at Didion’s lifelong habit to see what value there is in the act, determining that it’s more of a way to access the self than it is a valuable tool for writing. The final essay, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” is a long, mosaic portrait of the Haight Street counterculture scene in San Francisco, which Didion paints as a sign of a larger trend toward the unraveling of the social fabric of America. Several smaller essays follow that document Michael Laski (a radical Communist figure), Howard Hughes, the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and the rising Las Vegas wedding scene-each of these attempts to reconcile the image that Americans held at the time with the real figures at the center of them.
“Where the Kissing Never Stops” has Didion following Joan Baez at her Institute for the Study of Nonviolence, which was a cultural flash point in California during the 60s. “John Wayne: A Love Song” follows the actor on his first film set after suffering a bout of cancer and tries to reconcile the man with the image he’s built over his film career. The essay “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” follows-through research, interviews, and media coverage-the trial and conviction of Lucille Miller, a housewife who is accused of staging her husband’s accidental death.
Nearly all of the essays in the book originated as magazine pieces, and many of them are concerned with the relationship between the American ideal, the people who embody it and reject it, and what Didion sees as a looming crisis of identity in America. “Seven Places of the Mind” has essays that document the relationship between a place and its people, including Didion herself. “Personals” contains several essays that outline various some of Didion’s philosophies and perspectives. The essays in “Life Styles in the Golden Land” are examples of Didion’s New Journalism style of writing and document various groups, individuals, and cultural phenomena in California and the American Southwest. The collection is divided into three sections: “Life Styles in the Golden Land,” “Personals,” and “Seven Places of the Mind,” with the essays in each section centered around a common topic or theme.
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