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Cover of Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion

Play It as It Lays

  • 214 pages · about 4 hours
  • First published 1970
  • 37 editions

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1 About this book

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.

Good for readers who want: a classic and literary fiction.

  • Classics
  • Literary fiction
  • Feminism
  • Women
  • California

2 About Joan Didion

1934–2021

Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer and journalist. She is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe. Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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