In her transformative essay from 1967, Joan Didion takes a closer look at the dark side of the Haight-Ashbury counterculture during the Summer of Love.
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[Editor’s note: Joan Didion’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” was first published in the September 23, 1967, edition of the Post. We republish it here as part of our 50th anniversary commemoration of the Summer of Love. Scroll to the bottom to see this story as it appeared in the magazine.]
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world . . .
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand . . .
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
—W.B. Yeats
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