Gstaad
Joan Didion, who died last December, took herself extremely seriously. American writers tend to do that, especially those whose books are unreadable, the kind who win prizes and get reviewed by the Bagel Times. Pretension aside, however, Didion was a hell of a writer, a stylist who modelled her prose on Papa Hemingway’s. We never met, but I knew enough to stay away because of a joke I played on her.
Didion was godmother to David Mortimer’s and Shelley Wanger’s daughter, a young lady I have never met. Shelley is an editor at Knopf, and is the daughter of that beautiful and elegant actress of the 1940s Joan Bennett. David Mortimer is a scion of a grand old American family. I have always known them and like them, hence the joke. Joan Didion was being pushed in her wheelchair by an editor friend of mine, Steven Aronson, who is at present tasked with the Herculean labour of collecting Taki’s immortal writings of the past 50 years. Steven played along when I told him that although I have always been in love with Shelley, I was also going out with her daughter, whose name I don’t even know. He embellished a bit and told Didion that I was actually stepping out with the youngster. Upon hearing the false news, la Didion had a nervous breakdown right on Fifth Avenue.
How differently an English lady of letters would have taken it. The charming triviality of life escapes certain American types, and Joan was no exception. All writers are self-centred, but the recently departed gave the impression that she carried the weight of the world on her tiny frame. (Apparently her amphetamine intake was prodigious.) She also acted superior, especially with lesser mortals.
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