We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine 4th fiction Time apart has done them

Time apart has done them good

in the homes of the Bay Area upper class

This book is about pleasure

and moving World War II art-heist-adventure tale where enemies become heroes

We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine 4th fiction Time apart has done themJoan Didion opened The White Album (1979) with what would become one of the most iconic lines in American literature: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Today, this phrase is deployed inspirationally, printed on T shirts and posters, used as a battle cry for artists and writers. In truth, Didion was describing something much less rosy: our human tendency to manufacture delusions that might ward away our anxieties when society seems to spin