One of the best books of the year, in my estimation...I was unable to find a home for a review, but I can honestly say that this is a magnificent work both as autobiography and biography. Amazing!

Truly a fascinating and engaging story, I devoured this. Joan Didion is one of the literary lions of the last century, and Cory Leadbeater reveals her quiet, thoughtful life as he moves between the wealthy world of the Upper East Side and his former mundane life with curiosity and a sweet openness that is completely endearing. I loved this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Ecco for the opportunity to read and review this work.

Horror actor Christopher Lee, whose spectacularly terrifying portrayal of the blood-thirsty Count in Hammer Films’ 1958 “Horror of Dracula” scared the pants off me as a wide-eyed 13-year-old, said of co-star Peter Cushing, who played the formidable foe Dr. Van Helsing, that the two actors over time came to be such close friends that they didn’t even have to finish each other’s thoughts. So close did they become, he said, so almost of one mind, that just a word or two over the telephone recalling a shared previous incident could bring them both to laughter or tears, depending on the nature of the remembered event, which made for a particularly hard adjustment for Lee after Cushing died.
No more someone he could communicate with almost telepathically, he said, which resonated with me for my having also enjoyed a similar bond with a now-deceased literature professor, what with our both being consummate connoisseurs of fiction as well as our both being veterans, his time in uniform being in the World War II era and mine in the Vietnam era, and perhaps most apposite here, our both being unapologetic throwbacks to the Age of Aquarius – he had believed in the ’60s, he was given to say, and so, even more so perhaps with my younger age, had I.
All of which is a circuitous but germane way to get around to the sort of close relationship that Cory Leadbeater reports in his memoir “The Uptown Local” having had with the late novelist and essayist Joan Didion, whom I first became aware of in the fractured days of 1971 after I’d just gotten out of the service and, disgusted and appalled with some of the sentiments I’d encountered in uniform – an NCO I’d earlier respected said the Guard shooters at Kent State should get the Outstanding Unit Citation – I’d enrolled in a journalism graduate program, where, hungry for a voice expressive of the dismay or bewilderment I was feeling, I found it in Didion after being put on to her in a magazine writing course.
So absorbed, indeed, did I get with reading the essay of hers we’d been assigned, “Goodbye to All That” (still to my mind perhaps the finest American essay of the mid-20th century) that I was very nearly late for a class for wanting to finish it. Veritably a Godsend Didion’s prose went on to become for me in those tumultuous times.
Not to the extent that another favorite author of mine, the now largely forgotten Frederick Exley, reported that Edmund Wilson had been for him – literally saved his life, Exley claimed – but very much resonant for me, her sentiment that “an attack of vertigo and nausea (did) not … seem to me an inappropriate response to the summer of 1968.”
So: particularly relevant Leadbeater’s book looked to be for me when it showed up as a choice on Netgalley, with its promise of a behind-the-scenes look at the woman who'd meant so much to me, and indeed the book proved to be that to some extent, but not as much as I’d hoped, with how it ended up being more about Leadbeater than about Didion. With cause, though, with the multitude of emotional issues that Leadbeater had to work his way through, including an abusive father who ended up going to prison for Trump-like financial shenanigans, a long-suffering mother who ended up with uterine cancer, a best friend who died, a deal for a book that looked to be a sure thing only to have it fall apart at the last moment, and, no doubt in large part because of all that, suicidal ideation for Leadbeater.
For all the trauma that he suffered, though, and enough there was of it to make you wonder how he survived to tell the tale, there’s still an appreciable amount in the book about Didion, of whom he offers a particularly astute insightful analysis when he says of her that “of the various versions different people had of her, the genius waif leaning against her Stingray, the political journalist and assassin, the California Cassandra, the woman perpetually in bed with a headache,” the truth was that “she was all of those things, all at once.”
“She did not try to reduce life down to a more manageable size in order to understand it,” he goes on; “instead she endeavored to create a consciousness as large, varied, complex, and contradictory as life itself. She rejected orthodoxy so as to better see the real. This to me will always be her greatest achievement.”
For all the obvious affinity he felt for her, though, the two were not always of like mind, even in their shared love of literature. He notes, for instance, that she loved Hemingway while he loathed him, presumably being more of the mind about him as the narrator of another favorite novel of mine, Ellen Feldman’s ”The Unwitting,” who pronounced him a “posturing bellicose buffoon.”
And while there’s certainly that about him, with all that macho posturing, there’s also the undoubtable grace of his writing, in particular for Didion the first paragraph of “A Farewell to Arms,” which she wrote eloquently about in a New Yorker piece in which she remarked on its “four deceptively simple sentences, one hundred and twenty-six words, the arrangement of which remains as mysterious and thrilling to me now as it did when I first read them, at twelve or thirteen, and imagined that if I studied them closely enough and practiced hard enough I might one day arrange one hundred and twenty-six such words myself.” A veritable exegesis she does of the paragraph, noting in particular its “liturgical cadence.”
Something that might well also be said of Cory’s prose, liturgical cadence, including this about him and his brother as they dealt with their father: “When things got bad at home, as the indictment came down, as the arrest was made, as the threat of twelve years loomed, and neither of us could justify leaving our family to go on another adventure – we were huddling at the base, we were tightening the ranks, we were vulnerable, we knew, and could be picked off at any time if we ventured too far alone – we would sit and watch travel television.”
Or, more on point here about Didion, there’s this about the enduring effect on him of her death: “I was more and more undone by (her) death with each passing day. It was not beginning to slowly pass away. It was, instead, accruing, accruing the way our love and intimacy and honesty had accrued, moment by moment, with each lunch at her table together, each hour upon hour spent listening to Chopin or Auden readings or Nina songs to keep our loneliness at bay.”
Almost liturgical in its own way, as I say, Cory’s writing, enough so that it rises in places to the level of Didion’s or Hemingway’s in a book which, while also being a superbly written remembrance of a fellow writer, is perhaps most notable for its expression of the depth of longing or bereavement experienced by anyone who has ever lost someone especially dear, be it Leadbeater about Didion or Lee about Cushing or me about my professor friend.

This was not even remotely what I expected [and I don't mean that in a good way]. I expected a lovely memoir about Joan Didion and the author's time with her and what life was like with her; yeah, no. Not even remotely.

I am not sure what this was supposed to be, but a coherent memoir it is not. This was a jumbled mess [that reads more like an angst-filled journal] that seemed even longer than the book really was [I cannot tell you how many times I looked at my watch, thinking I must be close to being done only to find I still had hours left]; there were so many moments where I wanted to quit [but then was afraid I would miss a really glorious story about Ms. Didion. Spoiler, I did not], scream in frustration and/or throw my book [sometimes all three at once], as there were few Didion insights [it often felt like a name-drop book; yes he worked for her and yes he DOES mention her, but not in any real meaningful way IMO] to make it more enjoyable. I cannot even imagine what she would have thought of this hot mess of a book.

As someone who adores Joan Didion and her writing, this was a huge disappointment.

Thank you to NetGalley, Cory Leadbeater, and Ecco for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a beautiful and fast read. I felt connected with the author and his life experiences and I enjoyed looking at Didion in another light after her passing. Memoirs tend to be hit or miss, but this one hit the mark.

Cory Leadbeater's fascinating memoir details his reliance on alcohol and cigarettes to manage his stresses unrelated to his nine year work relationship with Joan Didion. Leadbeater was hired to assist Didion during the final years of her life. He lived in her residence and accompanied her to many outings, then stayed by her side through illness and death. Despite what seems like a lovely job for an educated young man interested in writing, Leadbeater fights many personal demons: his father is sent to federal prison; his mother is diagnosed with cancer; his best friend dies; his partner miscarries their first child--and then there is COVID. Leadbeater's memoir is repetitive in some chapters, but captures the competing forces of a messy personal life and the opportunity to spend each day with a gifted writer.

Cory Leadbeater has written an intimate memoir about his life his issues and problems.He also shares with us the time he spent as the iconic Joan Didion assistant even living with her.I enjoyed getting to know the iconic Joan Didion through his eyes. A well written memoir that I really enjoyed.#netgalley #ecco

A meandering memoir that promises a range of emotions, but was mostly just sad. I did not finish this one after putting it down in the middle, I just didn’t want to pick it back up.

Cory Leadbeater was Joan Didion’s assistant/companion during the final years of her life. I was somewhat nervous going into the book. While I am not a Didion completist, I did not want to see her exploited by someone she employed and trusted. I had no need to be nervous. The Didion of this book is a gentle, grieving, wise and elderly presence. Cory suffered from personal and familial trauma and his position in Didion’s house was a comforting aspect of his often tumultuous life. This memoir also happens to fall during the years of COVID and the Trump presidency and it was interesting reading about those events from his perspective. I did feel that it was meandering and not always coherent, but overall this will (and should be) a popular memoir about a relationship with an iconic author. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

A memoir of a man who has had many struggles - father in prison, best friend died suddenly and a desire to be a part of a different class of people than his upbringing had prepared him for. Through his struggles he has a very bright light in working with Joan Didion for years.

The writing in this book was so well done - you could tell that Leadbetter agonized over all the word choices in order to find just the most precise word. But I found this book rather depressing. His life has been a dark one and it came through in the book. There was one very enlightening chapter describing the feelings of being suicidal.

Joy, Death and Joan Didion - I just didn't feel much joy while reading this memoir. Death was a prominent theme and not as much on Joan Didion as I would have like to have read. Joan was definitely a mentor and supporter but her influence was just not as in depth as I would have wanted.

The book was a worthwhile book to learn more about the inner workings of depression and suicide and for the prose.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my fair and honest opinion.