Play It as It Lays

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It As It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation. Joan Didion chose Hollywood to serve as her microcosm of contemporary society and exposed a culture characterized by emptiness and ennui.

Review:

There hasn't been another American writer of Joan Didion's quality since Nathanel West . . . A terrifying book. --John Leonard, The New York Times Simple, restrained, intelligent, well-structured, witty, irresistibly relentless, forthright in diction, and untainted by the sensational, Play It As It Lays is a book of outstanding literary quality. - -Library Journal [A] scathing novel, distilling venom in tiny drops, revealing devastation in a sneer and fear in a handful of atomic dust. --J. R. Frakes, Book World