A Book of Common Prayer in Around the World in 80 Books

Oct 26, 2015 Steve rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, i-spy

Several times during Joan Didion's Book of Common Prayer, one character will tell another that they "were wrong." In what almost seems irrelevant. Causes, love, politics, are all compromised. Wrongness is an empty term hardly worth the air it takes to utter the word. Nearly everyone is on the make. Lawyers can champion radical movements one day, hobnob with the beautiful people that night, and fly to Miami the next in order to seal a deal for Mirage jets. Air head college students join revolutio Several times during Joan Didion's Book of Common Prayer, one character will tell another that they "were wrong." In what almost seems irrelevant. Causes, love, politics, are all compromised. Wrongness is an empty term hardly worth the air it takes to utter the word. Nearly everyone is on the make. Lawyers can champion radical movements one day, hobnob with the beautiful people that night, and fly to Miami the next in order to seal a deal for Mirage jets. Air head college students join revolutionary movements and become air headed revolutionaries. Government bureaucrats (especially the ones overseas) are probably CIA. Didion's take on the 70s is razor sharp, and told through the forensic voice of Grace Strasser-Mendana, a rich and dying widow, who becomes fascinated with the personality and predictable fate of the neurotic bundle of nerves named Charlotte Douglas. Charlotte is both fleeing herself and searching for her Weatherman-like daughter. Boca Grande, an unstable Central American country, is as good a place as any for the unruly daughter to show up, or a grave to embrace you.

For a slim book, Didion packs a lot of story, perhaps too much, as she spends, arguably, too much time on Charlotte's first husband, Warren Bogart, an epic, poetry quoting asshole. Warren is one of the most abusive characters I've run across in all of literature (and I've read a lot). Didion knows this as well, and lingers a bit too long. But when the Didion (via Grace) put down comes, it goes to the bone -- and beyond. In a way I suppose it's worth it since Warren finally shuts his mouth. As I said, it's the 70s. Booze, drugs, threesomes in bed, machine guns, dinner parties, and cholera epidemics. Didion covers it all, and does so with admirable economy. I saw where some reviewers compared "Common Prayer" to Roth's American Pastoral. Well, in a way (daughters gone bad) it does, but for my money, Didion is much closer to the ground in capturing what the 70s were like. If you are a fan of Conrad's Nostromo, or Robert Stone's Flag for Sunrise, Didion's brutal examination of things American and Central American is a must read. ...more

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