They bought a house in Portuguese Bend, where they stayed for one year while Dunne researched for a book he was writing on the California grape strike.

One day, Dunne received a phone call that there was a baby girl at the hospital who needed a home.

Many of her pieces were published in New York, where readers could catch a glimpse of the West Coast hippie lifestyle unfamiliar to them.

Didion then began transitioning to writing about politics, supported by Bob Silvers, editor-in-chief of the New York Review of Books at the time.

One day, as Didion was preparing supper, Dunne slumped in his chair at home and died.

Didion sent Quintana for a short trip to Malibu, where she fell and suffered brain injuries at the airport.

She wrote about her feelings of emptiness and void in losing Dunne in her book The Year of Magical Thinking.

Didion was scared to move on and let go, out of fear that her memories with Dunne and Quintana would become increasingly remote as time passed.

During the Obama presidency, Didion was awarded a National Medal of Arts for exploring the depths of sorrow.

The site's consensus states: "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold pays tribute to an American literary legend with a richly personal perspective that should thrill devotees while enlightening newcomers.