Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
"Play It as It Lays" is a novel by Joan Didion, published in 1970, recognized as her sixth book and fourth novel. The story revolves around Maria Wyeth, a woman navigating a life marked by loss, confusion, and disconnection against the backdrop of Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the Nevada desert. Maria's character is shaped by her tumultuous childhood in a fading desert town and her subsequent escape to New York, where she marries a film director. The narrative explores her struggles with unfulfilled dreams, particularly regarding her daughter, Kate, who has been institutionalized, and the emotional fallout from personal tragedies, including an abortion and a fractured marriage.
The phrase "play it as it lays," derived from advice from Maria's gambling father, encapsulates her resigned acceptance of life's randomness and despair. The novel delves into themes of alienation and despair, with critics noting its portrayal of soulless characters, yet it received acclaim for Didion's sharp writing style. While controversial for its depiction of violence and hopelessness, "Play It as It Lays" became a best-seller and was nominated for a National Book Award, making it a significant work in Didion's literary career.
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Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
First published: 1970
The Work
Play It as It Lays is Joan Didion’s sixth book and her fourth novel. Its theme is loss, confusion, and disconnection. The locales are Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the Nevada desert, suitable settings for her cinema-influenced story of a star who is married to the producer who starred her in two small movies. Her only grasp on the game of life is the advice she received from her gambling father, who told her to play it as it lays.
Maria (pronounced Mar-EYE-ah) Wyeth is, readers learn on the first page, a woman who sees no sense in the random facts of existence. From childhood, her life had been precarious. Her father dreamed of making a tourist attraction out of their desert town of twenty-six inhabitants. The town disappeared entirely. Maria escaped to New York after high school to study acting, and there she met and married the director who featured her in two minor movies. They had a daughter, Kate, who was retarded and put in a hospital and whom Maria tries to visit more often than she is allowed.
Lying beside the pool of the elegant mental hospital where she is confined, Maria dreams only of going somewhere to live with Kate. She no longer drives endlessly on the Los Angeles freeways to keep herself sane. No movie parts come her way. Her husband is gone.
She had an abortion not long ago, a horror about which she still dreams. Her married lover did not leave his wife, and her husband insisted she get rid of the child, which was not his. Later she followed him to location in the desert on the promise of a part, but he saved it for a new girlfriend and then had an affair with Maria’s best friend.
The friend’s husband, a producer, sees that Maria is as desperate as he is, that they have both “been out there where nothing is.” He plans his suicide and offers her some of his supply of Seconal capsules. When she refuses, he tells her she is “still playing” but he is through. Lying beside her on the bed, he takes the capsules. Her final defense against her husband and her friend is that she has the courage to keep on playing, although she knows what nothing means.
When it was published in 1970, the novel was a best-seller, although critics objected to the soullessness of the characters. It was nominated for a National Book Award and was generally praised for the writing if not always for the violence and hopelessness of the story.
Bibliography
Didion, Joan. Slouching Towards Bethlehem. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968. A collection of essays that preceded Play It as It Lays. Three of the essays in this collection have particular significance to that novel: “On Morality,” “Los Angeles Notebook,” and “Goodbye to All That.” Each is an indispensable aid in understanding Didion’s sensibility and worldview. Similarities between the text of the novel and Didion’s own life are readily apparent.
Didion, Joan. “A Conversation with Joan Didion.” Interview by Lewis Burke Frumkes. The Writer 112 (March, 1999): 14. Didion discusses her life, work, and writers who have influenced her. She also discusses her love of poetry, her methods of composition, and her marriage to writer John Gregory Dunne.
Felton, Sharon, ed. The Critical Response to Joan Didion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. Critical essays present a detailed study of Didion’s various works, including Play It as It Lays. A biographical introduction, as well as a selected bibliography make this a valuable resource.
Fracasso, Evelyn E. “Exploring the Nightmare Landscape’: Didion’s use of Technique in Play It as It Lays.” CLA Journal 34 (December, 1990): 153-160. An analysis of Didion’s narrative technique in the novel.
Friedman, Ellen G., ed. Joan Didion: Essays and Conversations. Princeton, N.J.: Ontario Review Press, 1984. A collection of essays including three interviews, Didion’s nonfiction essay “Why I Write,” and several critical interpretations of her prose through Slavador (1983). This volume contains three important essays on Play It as It Lays.
Henderson, Katherine U. Joan Didion. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981. A monograph that includes a biographical essay on Didion and one essay each on her books through The White Album, this book stresses the importance of the frontier experience in Didion’s writing and shows how traditional American experience and values collide with the “new order.” A brief but good introduction to Didion.
Rigney, Barbara Hill. Madness and Sexual Politics in the Feminist Novel. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978. Although this book does not discuss Joan Didion’s novel in particular, the introduction serves as a useful general preface to women and “madness” in literature.
Winchell, Mark Royden. Joan Didion. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1989. An update of a book that appeared in 1980, this work is a part of Twayne’s United States Authors Series and a most important reference. Includes a chronology through 1987, a selected bibliography of both primary and secondary sources, and an examination of Didion’s works through Democracy (1984).