I got the letter out as an object lesson for a seventeen-year-old cousin who is unable to eat or sleep as she waits to hear from what she keeps calling the colleges of her choice. What slight emotional investment I ever had in dried butterfly orchids and pictures of myself as a bridesmaid has proved evanescent, but I still have an investment in the letter, which, except for the "Dear Joan," is mimeographed. The letter is dated April 25, 1952, and for a long time now it has been in a drawer in my mother's house, the kind of back bedroom drawer given over to class prophecies and dried butterfly orchids and newspaper photographs that show eight bridesmaids and two flower girls inspecting a sixpence in a bride's shoe. "Dear Joan," the letter begins, although the writer did not know me at all.
26, but you can start reading this excerpt from Joan Didion's Let Me Tell You What I Mean today, exclusively on Bustle: On Being Unchosen by the College of One's Choice In it, Didion reflects on being denied admission to Stanford and spending a wayward summer grappling with her feelings of rejection. "On Being Unchosen by the College of One's Choice," which is excerpted below, delves deep into the author's early collegiate setback. This new book contains 12 previously uncollected Didion essays, all written between 19, which touch on everything from the writing life to the meaning of Martha Stewart's success. This experience is just one of the many Didion chronicles in her latest essay collection, Let Me Tell You What I Mean.
But before she became the patron saint of literary girls - or Céline's most celebrated model - Didion was just a young Sacramento native, eagerly awaiting an acceptance letter to Stanford that would never come. The 86-year-old writer has won the National Book Award, been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and was given the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. Joan Didion has long been lauded as the voice of her generation.
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