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New Orleans’ oppressive atmosphere stirs memories of childhood visits and an ex-lover - and stark comparisons between the South and Joan Didion’s home in California.

Joan Didion always kept notebooks of overheard dialogue, observations, interviews, drafts of essays and articles.

This is one that traces a road trip she took in June 1970, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

And in her native west, the memoir piece California Notes that began as an assignment from Rolling Stone on the Patty Hearst trial of 1976.

Read by Laurel Lefkow

Omnibus of five parts abridged by Eileen Horne

Producer: Clive Brill

Director: Eoin O'Callaghan

A Brill production for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4, first broadcast in September 2017.