Collins Modern Classics - Play It As It Lays (Collins Modern Classics)
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.
”'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 -