daban cuenta de un país que se ahogaba en su propio pasado. El resultado son unas agudas y cortantes anotaciones sobre ese Sur retrógrado, notas que, a la luz de las actuales dinámicas del panorama político, social y cultural de la era Trump, cobran un sentido casi profético. Como polo opuesto a esa experiencia sureña, Sur y Oeste termina con las notas californianas de 1976, que empezaron como un encargo de Rolling Stone para cubrir el juicio contra Patty Hearst. Aunque Didion nunca llegó a escribir el artículo, sí que vivió en San Francisco y asistió al juicio, experiencia que le hizo reflexionar sobre los Hearst, sus años de formación en Sacramento y un Oeste que, al contrario del Sur, siempre ha mirado al futuro. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION National Bestseller One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Harper's Bazaar Joan Didion has always kept notebooks-of overheard dialogue, interviews, drafts of essays, copies of articles. South and West gives us two extended excerpts from notebooks she kept in the 1970s; read together, they form a piercing view of the American political and cultural landscape. "Notes on the South" traces a road trip that she and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, took through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Her acute observations about the small towns they pass through, her interviews with local figures, and their preoccupation with race, class, and heritage suggest a South largely unchanged today. "California Notes" began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial. Though Didion never wrote the piece, the time she spent watching the trial in San Francisco triggered thoughts about the West and her own upbringing in Sacramento. Here we not only see Didion's signature irony and imagination in play, we're also granted an illuminating glimpse into her mind and process.