Play It as It Lays by Joan DidionMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Maria is beautiful, thin, rich. Her parents dealt her with aces. She had her mother's beauty, her father's optimism. What she lacked was the game.
Maria's world is shattered when her daughter is put into an institution for being mentally retarded. This is never spelled out, it is merely alluded to. Her family life is not as she wishes it to be. They are not a cosy couple, living an everyday life with their child. Her husband is away mostly, making films, while she is the bored, purposeless Beverly Hills faded trophy wife.
She spirals downwards, all the people in her life, everything that happens to her, just pushes her deeper into mire.
What makes the book stand out is the masterly writing of Joan Didion. Her pithy prose leads you into the mind of Maria, what makes her tick, or rather, what makes her fall apart. Maria recounts her story, or parts of it, from an Institution. Her account is disjointed, moving back and forth. Her disjointed thoughts, lacking any clear flow, betray the state of her mind. It is as if the writer is not there at all, and the novel is flowing straight out of the head of Maria Lang.
Beautiful fading Maria remains strangely untouched by the decadence that surrounds her, even though she is a part of it. Her long highway drives to forget her troubles are going to stay in my mind for a long time.
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