Last Thing He Wanted - Hardcover
Journalist Elena McMahon watches her evasive, gruff father's life ebbing away before her. A desire to understand him impels her to do his bidding, to go into a "situation" in Central Ameria, knowing neither what to expect, what to ask or what to define as achievement.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." --"USA Today"
"Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." --"The New Yorker"
"Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." --"Los Angeles Times"
"Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." --"The New York Times Book Review"
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." --"USA Today""Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." --"The New Yorker""Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." --"Los Angeles Times""Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." --"The New York Times Book Review"
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." "USA Today""Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." "The New Yorker""Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." "Los Angeles Times""Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." "The New York Times Book Review""
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." USA Today"Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." The New Yorker"Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." Los Angeles Times"Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." The New York Times Book Review"
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." --USA Today"Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." --The New Yorker"Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." --Los Angeles Times"Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." --The New York Times Book Review
From the Back Cover:
"Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." --"The New Yorker"
"Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." --"Los Angeles Times"
"Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." --"The New York Times Book Review"
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." --"USA Today""Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." --"The New Yorker""Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." --"Los Angeles Times""Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." --"The New York Times Book Review"
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." "USA Today""Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." "The New Yorker""Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." "Los Angeles Times""Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." "The New York Times Book Review""
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." USA Today"Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." The New Yorker"Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." Los Angeles Times"Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." The New York Times Book Review"
"Gripping...Didion at her finest." --USA Today"Simultaneously lucid and surreal . . . the result is entrancing." --The New Yorker"Remarkable. . . . Didion has created a menacing world where the reader is held hostage." --Los Angeles Times"Dark detail, understatement and intelligence work their astonishing magic." --The New York Times Book Review
"It is 1984, a period, in Joan Didion's sweeping formulation of luridness, of counterfeit machismo, of 'striking and maintaining a certain kind of sentimental pose'. More specifically, it was a time when large quantities of lethal weaponry reached the Nicaraguan Contras with the connivance, but without the official sanction, of the American government...It is typical of Didion's approach to her theme that Elena McMahon, the out of work reporter who agrees to escort a shipment of anti personnel mines to a Caribbean island arrives on the remote jungle airstrip wearing a black silk shift. This novel, like its heroine's choice of travel wear, proclaims its classiness at once...Didion's language is as high toned as it is hip, an amalgam of journalistic and political jargons with pared down prose full of finely sprung rhythms, suggestive pauses and patterns of repetition and variation as artful and shapely as song...impractical as it may be, there really is nothing as becoming as black silk."
LUCY HUGHES HALLETT, 'Sunday Times'
"The centrality of 'The Last Thing He Wanted' is not a person, nor even an event, but the tone of the US in 1984. The technique of writing is, as usual, unique, an incantation with repetitions and rhythms to entrance the reader, meant to restore full weight to a language made weightless by misuse...I should perhaps also mention that I read it twice for pure delight before reading it for review."
VERONICA HORWELL,'Guardian'
"Fast paced, witty, inventive...'The Last Thing He Wanted 'is a creation of high seriousness, a thriller composed with all the resources of a unique gift for imaginative literature."
ELIZABETH HARDWICK,'New York Review of Books'
"Joan Didion's first novel for more than a decade, 'The Last Thing He Wanted' is by far her most secular and disenchanted. It is also close to her best."
BRIAN MORTON, 'TES'
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherTandem Library
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 1417719036
- ISBN 13 9781417719037
- BindingHardcover
- Rating
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