i bought this book because on the back there was a quote by Didion that said something to the effect of "the people who interested me hung out in gas stations" I liked that, but I don't recommend hanging out at a gas station, you'll probably get cancer! I guess I liked her affirmation of griminess. I think this book contains her essay on the Central Park Five, but I'll need to go back and verify that

A compendium of long form articles looking at politics, crime and journalism in America up until the late 1980s. Didion looks at the way issues of criminality, and race are covered by different papers and the way large narratives are created by the press for political ends.

In this collection of essays, a sharp, precise and cool as ever Joan Didion examines the narratives -sentimental images, overly simplistic explanations, exemplary tales and staged events- that feed our comfortable illusions of order and fairness. Those self-delusions that, in the end, do nothing but allow the system (the economical, political and social hierarchies and rules we are expected to believe in and abide by in order to be part of) to remain basically unaltered.

“The imposition of a sentimental, or false, narrative on the disparate and often random experience that constitutes the life of a city or a country means, necessarily, that much of what happens in that city or country will be rendered merely illustrative, a series of set pieces, or performance opportunities”