THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JOAN DIDION

Hillary Huber performs Evelyn McDonnell's fan notes on the life and times of Joan Didion with the warm excited tones of a girlfriend sharing an enthusiasm with someone she met outside the star's stage door. It's a smart choice, well-paired with McDonnell's text, and Huber's voice is lovely. The problem lies not with the performance of this audiobook but with the text itself. Didion wrote so much, so well, in her own incisive, austere, and indelible style about the world according to her that it is difficult to imagine why anyone would rather hear this effort than Didion's version. Neither thoughtful critical essay nor proper biography, this very personal and incomplete account flies under false colors but may interest McDonnell fans. B.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2023]