Play It as It Lays (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Joan Didion
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The late 1960’s
- Setting: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and the Mojave desert
- Principal Characters: Maria Wyeth, Carter Lang, Kate, BZ, Helene, Les Goodwin, Francine Wyeth, Harry Wyeth, Ivan Costello, Johnny Waters
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Values
- Locales: Los Angeles, CA
Form and Content
Play It as It Lays is an episodic novel that focuses on Maria Wyeth’s loss and regaining of identity in a patriarchal society where she has been labeled as her father’s daughter, as sex object, and as “wife.”
Set in the late 1960’s among the jet-set crowd in Beverly Hills, Maria’s story begins and ends with her voice—in a mental hospital. The first three chapters, set off from the eighty-four numbered chapters and entitled “Maria,” “Carter,” and “Helene,” are told from the viewpoints of these three characters and give the...
[The entire page is 2245 words long]
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