Play It as It Lays (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Joan Didion
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Values, 1960’s, North America or North Americans, Self-discovery, United States or Americans, Acting or actors, Sex or sexuality, Suicide, Self, Alienation, California, West, U.S., Mental illness, Upper classes, Adultery, Abortion, Drugs, Lifestyles, Filmmaking or filmmakers, Gossip
- Locales: Los Angeles, CA, Las Vegas, NV, Mojave Desert, CA
The eighty-three brief scenes in this short novel at first appear to symbolize protagonist Maria Wyeth's anxious sense of being a displaced, discontinuous person. However, their interrupted continuity also comes to represent the failure of the film industry to comprehend her complexity and her needs. Maria's husband, Carter, never gets beyond his first image of her as an East Coast model; it is this superficial image that he prefers in the films which he makes of her. He is equally narrow in his attitude toward their daughter, Kate, born disabled. Carter has her institutionalized and...
[The entire page is 1104 words long]
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