Play It As It Lays: Joan Didion Style

I just finished reading Play It As It Lays. And now I'm on to imagining what Joan Didion's life might have been like while she wrote it.



The novel is:
Dry, desperate and rushingly rhetorical.
About one woman's cycle of self destruction, her uncontrollable ennui and the almost graceful determination with which she ensures her own doom.
Set against the hot malaise of early 70's L.A.
The sort of story that makes you want to wear your smallest dress and your darkest shades as you drive fearlessly into the desert with nothing else but pills and cigarettes and an emptiness where your soul used to be.

It's a perfect read for when you are feeling like disaster.



And as for the author, I admire her words and I have to say the same goes for her style, which has certainly influenced my vision of how her protaganist must have looked. Lean and bird-like, lightly touched by the sun, wearing long skirts and sandals and the look of quiet brilliance.


















"I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing."
-Play It As It Lays