Joan Didion Night

On Tuesday, June 2nd...

We gathered a room of 20 Hot Literati at LES Wine on Ludlow Street to discuss Joan Didion.

We split into three groups and each one was tasked with creating their own Joan Didion character set In 2026. Read them all and then vote on your favorite one:

Group One

Claudia is riding the subway to her thesis defense, riding the J train from her boyfriend’s bedstuy studio apartment. She’s been in love with him for approximately 30 of the 1,825 days she’s been dating him, non-consecutive. Claudia is an interdisciplinary student at NYU Gallatin studying “Present Studies” while successfully running her micro niche controversial twitter account (@hotpraxisclaud).

Her syllabus:

• nietzsche

• publications on ai

• Foucault

Popular tweets include discourse on the surveillance state, specifically the concept of the panopticon as well as immigration law. She's observant of system collapse, resourced, hedonistic, contradictory in her multitudes, and finally, probably conniving.

Sample tweets:

• “the detention centers seem horrifying unless youve been to a new york public school in the last five years. at least there’s no phones”

• “discipline is when i don’t strangle him when he uses my aesop in the shower”

• “snowden revealed the lie at the heart of this country —- the most secretive government agencies trust state secrets to the most [something insulting about his person]”

• “i’d rather china have my account statements than experian”

Group Two

Nancy, a gallerist in New York City, strikes a pedestrian with her car while driving back to the city

with her married boyfriend. She had just had a fight with her parents about said relationship and

impulsively took the Range Rover from their Hamptons house. While on the way back to the city,

she hits a pedestrian, leading her boyfriend to abandon her on the road. Then, there’s no one to

call but her parents, who agree to cover it up, then proceed to cut her off entirely.

Group Three

Dydious is a Ex- soul cycle-cafe urth- green matcha hoarder that has freshly arrived to New York influencer by trade, aspiring screenwriter by xanax night who can't get his screenplay off the ground.

They come from a well off family, of course, but are performative poor, in like, a dime square type of way. Gender ambiguous, but constantly changing their pronouns. Like a car crash overlooking the hudson river, you cant stop watching them burn all their bridges in new york. Now, they're trying to start over in the big apple, but their past catches up to them, bad decisions eating at them to the core...

Vote!

For the Hot Literati at home, vote on your favorite below, which one would you read a full novel about?

Vote for your favorite!

• Group One (Claudia otw to her thesis defense)
• Group Two (Nancy gets in a hit and run)
• Group Three (Dydious the nepo baby burns bridges)

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And of course, a huge thanks to our host, LES Wine and Spirits. Check them out for all of your beverage needs and tell them Hot Literati sent you <3