We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine is a cultural history of American myth-making in Hollywood, and one writer who saw and lived it all.

With bylines spanning six decades, Joan Didion’s legacy towers over the landscape of American letters. Although she launched her career in New York City, she soon struck out for Los Angeles, where the nation’s dreams were manufactured—and every aspect of her work reflected what she saw there, whether she was writing on politics, society, or herself.

We Tell Ourselves Stories is a fresh perspective on Didion’s career as a novelist, critic, and screenwriter deeply embroiled in the grit and glamour of Hollywood. I chart how Didion became intimately acquainted with power players of the Los Angeles elite, arriving in the twilight of the old studio system in time to see lines between the industry and public life blur. I dissect the motifs and machinations that informed Didion’s writing—and how her writing, ultimately, demonstrated Hollywood’s addictive grasp on American identity.

We Tell Ourselves Stories will be released on March 11, 2025.


Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women

In Salty, I explore nine fascinating women from the 20th century who rooted their art, activism, and lives in their relationship to drink, food, and other forms of sustenance. It’s a book about hope in dark times.

Published by Broadleaf in June 2022.

Read excerpts:

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How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World

Robert Joustra and I explore the lessons of apocalyptic popular culture — from Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead to Mad Men and Breaking Bad — through the lens of Charles Taylor’s work on modernity.

Published by Eerdmans in May 2016.

Read excerpts in RogerEbert.com and Christianity Today.