Since she first wrote for the newspaper at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1960s, Sara Davidson has been taking the pulse of her generation. Davidson's work spans not only four decades but also diverse media. She has moved from newspapers to magazines, from nonfiction to fiction, and from print to television. Her creative work seems to fit whatever medium is most popular at the time, and her subjects seem to be reminiscent of the mood of the decade in which they appear.

At least once every ten years she publishes an article that serves as her benchmark for that decade. From Loose Change: Three Women of the Sixties (1977), her book that evokes the chaotic period of the 1960s, to her article "Love with a Proper Cowboy" (1995), her work as a literary journalist has provided a vivid illumination of the times she describes. In the more than...