From one of the most important chroniclers of our period, come two extended excerpts from her never-before-seen notebooks-writings that offer an illuminating glance into the brain and process of a legendary writer.

Joan Didion offers always kept notebooks: of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and content articles

Here is one particular draft that traces a street trip she took with her spouse, John Gregory Dunne, in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and approximately South and Western: From A Notebook Alabama. She interviews prominent local figures, details motels, diners, a deserted reptile farm, a visit with Walker Percy, a ladies’ brunch in the Mississippi Broadcasters’ Convention. She writes about the stifling heat, the nearly viscous speed of lifestyle, the sulfurous light, and the preoccupation with competition, class, and traditions she discovers in the small towns they pass through.

And from a different laptop: the ‘California Records’ that began seeing that an assignment from Rolling Rock in the Patty Hearst trial of 1976. Though Didion by no means published the piece, watching the trial and being in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA induced thoughts about the town, its cultural hierarchy, the Hearsts, and her very own upbringing in Sacramento. Here, too, may be the beginning of her taking into consideration the Western world, its panorama, the western ladies who were heroic on her behalf, and her own lineage.