South and West. From a Notebook

In these two never-before-seen notebooks is the record of a road trip through the American South - through motel pools that smell of fish, an eerily deserted reptile farm, and a Laundromat where women sit like sisters of mercy. Here too is a piece that began as an assignment on the Patty Hearst trial, and became a very personal meditation on the coastal ranges, country clubs and infinite romance of the California in which Didion and Hearst grew up.