Joan Didion's first essay collection, published in 1968, includes the title piece on the Haight-Ashbury scene, but also pieces on self-respect, on keeping a notebook, on John Wayne. The prose style is unmistakable: short sentences, precise details, the uneasy sense that something is wrong that cannot be named. She diagnosed the American breakdown before most people knew it was happening. The essays remain vital because the breakdown she identified has not ended.