-
candid in her assessment of her country and her time.
-
The voice that she develops in Slouching Towards Bethlehem
-
serves her very well in Play It As It Lays.
-
She's able here, too, to draw the same sort of
-
precise portraits that she relied upon in her nonfiction,
-
that results in a novel that is positively, undeniably seductive.
-
The plot revolves around a sort of marginal actress,
-
Maria Wyeth, who is divorced from her director husband and who drifts
-
aimlessly through the Hollywood party scene of the late 1960s
-
waiting for something to touch her, impact her
-
emotionally and morally.
-
She's both damaged and, as a result, utterly unreachable.