One Thursday at noon in December 2011, I spoke to Joan Didion over the phone. She was in a hotel in Washington. The woman at the front desk asked, “Who do you want? Bibion? Bas in boy?” I replied, “No, d as in dog,” feeling weird and a little hostile. “D as in dog, i, d as in dog, i, o, n.” I did not like having to put dog in Joan Didion’s name. And I did not want to speak to Joan Bibion.
Knopf had given us half an hour to talk. Didion was on book tour for her latest work, the memoir Blue Nights. She would be appearing at a bookstore later that day.
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