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Play It As It Lays

by Joan Didion
Play It As It Lays

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  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9780374529949
ISBN10: 0374529949
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil — literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul — it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.

Review

"There hasn't been another American writer of Joan Didion's quality since Nathanel West....A terrifying book." New York Times

Review

"Simple, restrained, intelligent, well-structured, witty, irresistibly relentless, forthright in diction, and untainted by the sensational, Play It As It Lays is a book of outstanding literary quality." Library Journal

Review

"[A] scathing novel, distilling venom in tiny drops, revealing devastation in a sneer and fear in a handful of atomic dust." Book World

About the Author

Joan Didion is the author of many works of fiction and nonfiction, as well as several screenplays written with her late husband, John Gregory Dunne. She lives in New York City.

5 1

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Average customer rating 5 (1 comments)

`
Tisa , May 17, 2018 (view all comments by Tisa)
Although this novel is “short” by most standards, it requires very close reading, and could (nay should) be read twice in succession. When I finish any book, i always go back and re-read the first chapter or two. You definitely need to do that with this Didion novel. Understand as you begin the story, that Maria is recounting her past life as she lives in an institution for the mentally ill, or for those who don’t function well in society. We learn what has lead to her institutionalization as she relives through dreams and memories the events that have led her to a feeling of isolation, depression, loneliness, and indifference. (No spoilers here.) Maria’s life has been a series of painful events that, along with her realization that the people she associates with live materialistic/meaningless lives, that don’t completely destroy her but reduce her life to uneventful observation of a hummingbird as she gazes at her world from the edge of the institution’s swimming pool. Didion’s prose is precise, riveting, and filled with repetitive images—driving, highways, snakes, drugs—typical of California. This novel is an important part of American literary history.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780374529949
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
11/15/2005
Publisher:
FARRAR STRAUS & GIROUX
Series info:
FSG Classics
Pages:
240
Height:
.60IN
Width:
5.50IN
Thickness:
1.00
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2005
Author:
David Thomson
Author:
Joan Didion
Author:
David Thomson
Author:
Joan Didion
Subject:
Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Motion picture industry

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