Joan Didion's electrifying debut novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience, a story of murder and betrayal that only Didion could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense. She wrote it in 1963 with editing assistance by John Gregory Dunne, the man she would marry a year later and to whom she would remain married for nearly four decades. Born in Sacramento, California on December 5th 1934, American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter Joan Didion created some of the most poignant portraits of American culture throughout the 1960s and 70s. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1956 and immediately began her career as a copywriter for Vogue, her work later appearing in Life, Esquire, and the Saturday Evening Post.