Joan Didion

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, "Play It As It Lays" captures the mood of an entire generation. Joan Didion chose Hollywood to serve as her microcosm of contemporary society and exposed a culture characterized by emptiness and ennui.

A Novel

Play It As It Lays

hessensitive

Maria closed her eyes. "And I'm also tired of Susannah."

That night the plan taxied out onto the runway at McCarran Maria had kept her face pressed against the window for as long as she could see them, her mother and father and Benny Austin, waving at the wrong window.

"You haven't asked me how it went after we left Anita's," BZ said.

"How did it go," Maria said without interest.

"Don't you ever get tired of doing favors for people?"

There was a long silence. "You don't know how tired," BZ said.

Maria tried to untangle the cord from the receiver and fight her way out of sleep. Sleeping in the afternoon was a bad sign. She had been trying not to notice the signs but she could not avoid this one, and a sharp fear contracted in her stomach muscles. "Where are you," she said finally.

Maria groped the edge of the pool for her dark glasses.

"Did I catch you in the middle of an overdose, Maria? Or what?"

"Mrs. Lang is resting," the nurse said. I could see her resting, I could see her down by the pool in the same bikini she was wearing the summer she skilled BZ, lying by that swimming pool with a shade over her eyes as if she hadn't a care or a responsibility in the world. She never puts on any weight, you'll notice that's often true of selfish women.

I try to live in the now and keep my eye on the hummingbird. I see no one I used to know, but then I'm not just crazy about a lot of people. I mean maybe I was holding all the aces, but what was the game?

That night my mother ran the car off the highway outside Tonopah I was with a drunk rich boy at the old Morocco, as close as I could figure later: I didn't know about it for a couple of weeks because the coyotes tore her up before anybody found her and my father couldn't tell me.

Just the snakes stretched on the warm asphalt and my mother with a wilted gardenia in her dark hair and my father keeping a fifth of Jim Beam on the floorboard and talking about his plans, he always had lots of plans, I never in my life had any plans, none of it makes any sense, none of it adds up.

Sidney R

I was raised to believe that what came in on the next roll would always be better than what went out on the last. 

This quote resonates deeply with me; it's as if Didion distilled the complexities of life's inheritance into a few profound lines. I find a personal connection to the interplay of inherited traits she describes, with a particular emphasis on migraines.

I, too, constantly experience migraines. The thought that they might come from my mother brings an extra layer, strangely making the experience not only bearable but also oddly heartwarming.

For a first-time reader (like me) not accustomed to Didion's work, anticipate an artistic departure from verbosity.

傑恩

“From my mother I inherited my looks and a tendency to migraine. From my father I inherited an optimism which did not leave me until recently.”

Grace McCarter

“You were going to come over and use the sauna," Larry Kulik said. 

"Hear you're ready for a nuthouse, you want to know." 

“I’m a good friend to people I like," Larry Kulik said. “Think it over."

She drove to the beach, but there was oil scum on the sand and a red tide in the flaccid surf and mounds of kelp at the waterline. The kelp hummed with flies. The water lapped warm, forceless.

A “scathing novel” of one woman’s path of self-destruction in 1960s Hollywood—by the New York Times–bestselling author of The White Album (The Washington Post Book World). Spare, elegant, and terrifying, Play It as It Lays is the unforgettable story of a woman and a society come undone. Raised in the ghost town of Silver Wells, Nevada, Maria Wyeth is an ex-model and the star of two films directed by her estranged husband, Carter Lang. But in the spiritual desert of 1960s Los Angeles, Maria has lost the plot of her own life. Her daughter, Kate, was born with an “aberrant chemical in her brain.” Her long-troubled marriage has slipped beyond repair, and her disastrous love affairs and strained friendships provide little comfort. Her only escape is to get in her car and drive the freeway—in the fast lane with the radio turned up high—until it runs out “somewhere no place at all where the flawless burning concrete just stopped.” But every ride to nowhere, every sleepless night numbed by pills and booze and sex, makes it harder for Maria to find the meaning in another day. Told with profound economy of style and a “vision as bleak and precise as Eliot’s in ‘The Wasteland’,” Play It as It Lays ruthlessly dissects the dark heart of the American dream (The New York Times). It is a searing masterpiece “from one of the very few writers of our time who approaches her terrible subject with absolute seriousness, with fear and humility and awe” (Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review).

Play It as It Lays

“one thing in my defense, not that it matters: i know something carter never knew, or helene, or maybe you. i know what ‘nothing’ means, and keep on playing. why, bz would say. why not, i say.” 

“fuck it, i said to helene. fuck it, i said to them all, a radical surgeon of my own life. never discuss. cut. in that way i resemble the only man in los angeles county who does clean work.”

“‘why do you say those things. why do you fight.’ he would sit on the bed and put his head in his hands. ‘to find out if you’re alive.’”

“‘what else are you tired of.’ ‘i don’t know.’ ‘you’re getting there,’ bz said. ‘getting where.’ ‘where i am.’”

“‘don’t you ever get tired of doing favors for people?’ there was a long silence. ‘you don’t know how tired,’ bz said.”

Helen 

She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but sayine she was sorry did not seem entirely adequate, and in any case what she was sorry about seemed at once too deep and too evanescent for any words she knew, seemed so vastly more complicated than the immediate fact that it was perhaps better left unravelled. 

hmm. im ngl i was not confident i understood what was going on (literal sense) for like 70% of this book. often sad and sometimes disturbing. interesting story, definitely successful communication of a feeling and a sense of this character’s mind. 

julia

Such a dark yet realistic story centred around probably the most self-destructive protagonist I have ever read about. Has a similar Bret Easton Ellis vibe (nihilistic, mentally unstable protagonist using drugs & alcohol to space out of their problems) but Diddion's narrative feels heavier as the acts perpetuated against protagonist & some of the other characters doesn't feel so senseless & plugged in for shock value. 

This is what my year of rest and relaxation wanted to be. Didion does indeed write with a knife.

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.

I loved the writing style, it was an easy read

isabelle

Stas

I hated most of the characters (if not all of them, I can't seem to accept that) and I genuinely did not enjoy reading this, I felt a surge of overwhelmedness and depression possessing me as soon as I opened the first page yet I find this book genius and though it brought me uneasiness every time I started reading it I wanted to go on and continue and pursue the words till the end, it's just compelling like that.

shaymaa

Sohini Roy

i don't think my brain is built for this type of writing

Louisa

Didion is so successfully unsentimental. A sharp observer of humans and culture, precise and terrifying in her insight. Play it as it Lays is a book in the mind of a depressed, listless woman aimlessly floating in what Didion observes as the Californian decadence of the 60s, though the book never gives any such clear cut terms as clues. It's a bored but functioning nihilistic crowd that thinks it's seen everything and has money and nothing else to do. It's striking how she captures what it's like to live without meaning, maybe due to too much freedom of choice. It also feels like a lot of her personal fears jump out of the pages. A very dark, pessimistic mind without hope, so perfectly captured. But which still often feels the melancholia of being barely alive. "I know what nothing means, and I keep on playing." The tiny 1.5 to 2 page chapters' format makes it irresistible and hard to put down.

lara anand

depression and ennui personified - i feel sick

aileeeeeeen

to be honest, I don’t really think I can grasp all the words of this book. but, it didn’t stop me to just put it down. the female character, Maria, seemed to have an endless misfortunes and issues in her life which led her into depression. the reality of woman’s world a little bit much getting complex as it is described. this is wrenching story which very so often I needed to put at halt to process of what was going on . .
however, it is blazingly written and I could no more adore how Didion wrote in this.

somehow both cold and overwhelming. when I pulled up the first page of Play It As It Lays on my phone I was actually struck by an immediate sense of apprehension rather than the 'terse, economical' style joan's known for, of a hand around my neck, the nausea and neurasthenia of thick perfume, “the emperor is actually wearing more clothes, more finery, than his structure will support.” Yet despair is slim and languid. indeed those first few pages felt very taut and nihilistic. 

Where Anais Nin is insistent and urgent and true (some say amoral), I think Joan tries to substantiate and substitute for some kind of emptiness. Again, I wanted very badly to feel moved, wanted for some new understanding to prod and push past the limits of the pixels on my screen. Carve a smile up to my ears if you must. She’s not interested in anything else I guess. Just how she feels. I related to that. even in fiction she situates herself within the narrator. Heroines of acedia and anomie. overall q a devastating book anyway

saleha

somehow both cold and overwhelming. when I pulled up the first page of Play It As It Lays on my phone I was actually struck by an immediate sense of apprehension rather than the 'terse, economical' style joan's known for, of a hand around my neck, the nausea and neurasthenia of thick perfume, “the emperor is actually wearing more clothes, more finery, than his structure will support.” Yet despair is slim and languid. indeed those first few pages felt very taut and nihilistic. 

Where Anais Nin is insistent and urgent and true (some say amoral), I think Joan tries to substantiate and substitute for some kind of emptiness. Again, I wanted very badly to feel moved, wanted for some new understanding to prod and push past the limits of the pixels on my screen. Carve a smile up to my ears if you must. She’s not interested in anything else I guess. Just how she feels. I related to that. even in fiction she situates herself within the narrator. Heroines of acedia and anomie. overall q a devastating book anyway

Sarah Sammis

Road narratives with women seem to break into three camps: ones that end up with romantic entanglements, those that are dangerous because of unwanted sexual encounters (rape, stalking, domestic abuse), and maternity (pregnancy, expected or unexpected, miscarriages, still births, or being over shadowed by traveling with children).

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2017/comm...

D D D 

I know what nothing means and keep playing anyways! 

I have a hard time recently enjoying books with depressed and disaffected female characters. Love you girls but I want to have fun right now. 3.5 stars. 

This book utilizes subtext incredibly. 

Finished this on the porch, caffeinated, warm wind blowing, contemplating being alone.

annalyse! 

devastating, atmospheric, cinematic, incredible

jack

god that was dark... like a casavettes film in that it is so corrupt and terrifying under a veil of laughter and "normalcy." emotionally a very tough read, but a breeze in every other way. didion's novel works as well as her essays do in their relaying of the important details of specific events and leaving all the fluff out. this is a harrowing account of the american dream in the 20th century and it's effects on marginalized groups (women and gays, specifically). as maria and BZ thin out and get strung out, carter, a straight male living the dream, gets bigger. the book isn't subtle, despite its relative willingness to stay in the realm of realistic events. this quite obviously reads as a foil for didion's actual life, her own story and neurosis. idk, this might be my longest review. good book. would recommend if ur hip to being sad/horrified.

désirée

i love it when a book is literally a knife. epic catharsis rn...... i just read a beautiful, beautiful book.

Amulya Garimella

Despite Didion's esteemed reputation as a skilled writer, the execution of this novel fell short for me, leading to the contemplation of whether it might benefit from a revisit.

The narrative, while attempting a dark exploration of Hollywood nihilism, felt disjointed and lacked a cohesive flow. The choppy sentences disrupted my reading experience, often failing to establish a smooth connection between ideas. Although this may not have been a seamless fit for me, its inherent darkness and pace may well appeal to readers with a penchant for such thematic exploration. 

My curiosity remains piqued, and I'm open to exploring Didion's nonfiction works, including her acclaimed memoirs and essays, as I've heard commendable reviews about it.

Despite Didion's esteemed reputation as a skilled writer, the execution of this novel fell short for me, leading to the contemplation of whether it might benefit from a revisit.

The narrative, while attempting a dark exploration of Hollywood nihilism, felt disjointed and lacked a cohesive flow. The choppy sentences disrupted my reading experience, often failing to establish a smooth connection between ideas. Although this may not have been a seamless fit for me, its inherent darkness and pace may well appeal to readers with a penchant for such thematic exploration. 

My curiosity remains piqued, and I'm open to exploring Didion's nonfiction works, including her acclaimed memoirs and essays, as I've heard commendable reviews about it.

🦌

Lorraine

This was a gift from my son, as I had never read anything from Joan Didion before and mentioned she was on my mind to try. The story is about a struggling actress in 1960’s Hollywood. I can’t fully explain how this book made me feel all the emotions that the main character Maria was going through from the outset. The depression, sadness, loss, loneliness, to the point that I had to keep taking pauses, to take a breath. It’s such a powerful, emotional story that I wouldn’t recommend reading if you are already feeling low. It takes a long while to shake it off. However, even though it was such a depressing story, it made me fall in love with the writing of Joan Didion. I finished the book knowing that I will now seek out all of her work, she is such an amazing writer.

oh i thought that my year of rest and relaxation was the pinnacle of books covering sad women but this! such a beautiful atmosphere and beautifully painted sceneries with just all of the life sucked from our protagonist and i genuinely enjoyed the read. it is such a good representation of that constant push to play the game of life but that pull to just let it all go, to just realize that in the end it all means nothing to anyone other than you.

Beatriz Aguiar

i'm just fascinated by 60's/70's L.A. 
the juxtaposition between the party life and how depressed and apathetic people found themselves. 
the vague writing style, the nonchalant way Joan Didion presents us with this woman, that seems frozen in a time where everything is happening around her and to her is so masterfully done and fascinating.
it really captures the realities of depression, the apathy that comes with actually being done with life, the way we easily fall back into habits because it is easier even if we know we do not want that.
 
to sum up, i love me some fiction about a depressed woman. make her a disgraced actress going through an abortion and apathetic about life and i'm set. couldn't ask for more.

Nick Gracilla

“I know what what ‘nothing’ means, and keep on playing.” Here, buried in the final pages of Didion’s wire tight prose, is our anti-heroine’s surprise: it seemed a coin flip, yet somehow she unlikely perseveres despite, or in spite, of herself. A study of nihilism in 1960s Hollywood and Vegas, Didion transports the reader unwillingly along a ride we can’t escape nor look away from. Highly recommended.

tina

fell asleep so many times while i was reading this book

Play It As It Lays A Novel

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