Joan Didion. 
 
Simon and Schuster: 1979. First edition. Hardcover in a jacket. Octavo. Chipping on the crown of the jacket's spine. Fading across the top of the price clipped jacket. A couple of folds on both flaps of the jacket. Flaps also a little warped. Fading on the top and bottom of the boards. Minor foxing on the top edge of the book. 222 pages. Very good. 
 
More than a sequel to Slouching Towards Bethlehem - an expansion of its fundamental concerns from the heart of California. After the end of the dream of the 'sixties, Didion writes with heart-crumbling beauty about the creation of the Getty museum, the death of Bishop James Pike, biker cults, Manson, water in a desert, and much more. 
 
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live. The princess is caged in the consulate. The man with the candy will lead the children into the sea. The naked woman on the ledge outside the window on the sixteenth floor is a victim of accidie, or the naked woman is an exhibitionist, and it would be 'interesting' to know which. We tell ourselves that it makes some difference whether the naked woman is about to commit a mortal sin or is about to register a political protest or is about to be, the Aristophanic view, snatched back to the human condition by the fireman in priest's clothing just visible in the window behind her, the one smiling at the telephoto lens. We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely... by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images.”