A ruthless and unflinching examination of American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking.
One thing in my defence, not that it matters: I know what ‘nothing’ means, and keep on playing
Somewhere out beyond Hollywood, hollowed-out actress Maria Wyeth’s life plays out in a numbing routine of perpetual freeway driving. In her early thirties, divorced from her husband, dislocated from friends, anesthetized to pain and pleasure, Wheth is a woman who has run out of both desires and motives – the epitome of a generation made ill by too much freedom.
More than five decades after its original publication, Play it as it Lays remains a profoundly disturbing novel that ruthlessly dissects American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking.
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780008706166
Number of pages: 300
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 15 mm
Weight: 160 g
Language: English
‘She writes with a razor.’ New York Times
‘A pioneer of New Journalism, she brilliantly chronicled America’s cultural and political life.’ Guardian
‘Didion's mordant lucidity is like L.A. sunlight, a thing so bright sometimes it hurts.’ Time
PRAISE FOR THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING
'Her poetic writing has a spell-like charm that is profoundly affecting.' Observer
'this brave book maps a year…when the world flipped over to expose the underside of cool where things go bad.’ The Times
'The subject may be bleak, but her tender treatment makes it a book that we should all read.' Daily Mail
The Divorce
Heated Rivalry
Heart the Lover
I Who Have Never Known Men
Wild Dark Shore
What We Can Know
Yesteryear
The Daisy Chain Flower Shop
We All Live Here
The Things We Never Say
The Impossible Fortune
Taiwan Travelogue
The Long Shoe
A brilliant, spare, understated depiction of an ageing actress’s plunge into depression. In so few words, Didion is able to perfectly evoke a place, a time and human psychology. She is one of the greatest writers of... More
Just an incredible book! Joan writes with such elegance and allure that it is really difficult to put down any of her books!! I loved this one so so much
One of my favourite books would have to be the spellbinding novel Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. It is a rapid and mesmerising story from a literary legend who writes with such acumen and dignified emotion to... More
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