Democracy Author:Joan Didion Joan Didion's new novel is a precise and pitiless exploration of lives lived in the harsh glare of public scrutiny, written with that unique Didion gift of capturing a whole world of human feelings with a single word or phrase. Yet Democracy is anyting but spare. Its images are those of the tropics, where much of it takes place, a background o... more »f rich colors, of sof winds, of senuality, the background against which a marriage collapses, a love affair begins and ends, a murder takes place.« less