Summary of Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion

By Condensed Books

A high-quality summary of Joan Didion ́s book Play It As It Lays including chapter details and an analysis of the main themes of the original book.

About the original book:

Maria Wyeth Lang is a Beverly Hills-based actress who is 31 years old. Since her buddy BZ committed suicide approximately a month ago, she has been institutionalized at the University of California, Los Angeles' Neuropsychiatric unit.

Maria has been requested to provide a detailed description of the circumstances that led to her emotional collapse by the physicians. She begins her story in Silver Wells, Nevada, a little town constructed atop a missile testing range that her father controlled. She moves to New York at the age of 18 to pursue a career as an actor, not because she is ambitious, but because her parents believe it is a good idea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.B. Publishers
• Release date: Jul 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005395469

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Condensed Books

Summary of Play It As It Lays

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This is an unofficial summary of Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion, designed to enrich your reading experience.

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OVERVIEW

Joan Didion's novel Play It as It Lays was released in 1970. It was chosen as one of TIME's 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005, confirming its place among American literature's best works. The novel was turned into a film in 1972, with Didion and her husband co-writing the screenplay.

Joan Didion is a writer who is recognized for her fiction and nonfiction, as well as screenplays and a memoir called The Year of Magical Thinking. She has won several honors, including the St. Louis Literary Award, the National Book Award for Nonfiction, the Evelyn F. Burkey Award, and the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

In 2009, Harvard University bestowed an honorary Doctor of Letters degree on Didion, and Yale University bestowed another in 2011. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2013.

Joan Didion died on December 23, 2001, at the age of 87.

SUMMARY

Maria Wyeth Lang is a Beverly Hills-based actress who is 31 years old. Since her buddy BZ committed suicide approximately a month ago, she has been institutionalized at the University of California, Los Angeles' Neuropsychiatric unit.

Maria has been requested to provide a detailed description of the circumstances that led to her emotional collapse by the physicians. She begins her story in Silver Wells, Nevada, a little town constructed atop a missile testing range that her father controlled. She moves to New York at the age of 18 to pursue a career as an actor, not because she is ambitious, but because her parents believe it is a good idea.

She encounters the novel's antagonist, Carter Lang, an auteur filmmaker who casts her in his two first films, while in New