She's a beautiful writer with a very distinct voice. Observant, noticing the telling details. Her essay compilations "Slouching towards Bethlehem" and "The Wh

She's a beautiful writer with a very distinct voice. Observant, noticing the telling details. Her essay compilations "Slouching towards Bethlehem" and "The White Album" are essential reading if you're interested in California in the late 1960s and into the 1970s -- she lived in LA at the time, and is definitely an outsider to the hippie/boomer explosion, some of the side-effects of which are in the essays. (The essay above was about her move from Manhattan to LA; she grew up in Sacramento.) Another influential essay of hers is "The Deferential Spirit" from 1996 (teaser at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1996/sep/19/the-deferential-spirit/?page=1 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1996/sep/19/the-def...) which demolishes the technique and works of Bob Woodward.