Play It As It Lays
By Joan Didion
1970
First Published
3.91
Average Rating
213
Number of Pages
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.
Avg Rating
3.91
Number of Ratings
79,530
5 STARS
29%
4 STARS
41%
3 STARS
23%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
1%
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Author
Joan Didion
Author · 34 books
Joan Didion was born in California and lived in New York City. She was best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation. A sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work.
