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''Play It as It Lays'' is a 1970 novel by the American writer Joan Didion. ''Time'' magazine included the novel in its ''TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005''. The book was made into a 1972 movie〔 starring Tuesday Weld as Maria and Anthony Perkins as BZ. Didion co-wrote the screenplay with her husband, John Gregory Dunne. ==Plot summary== The novel begins with an internal monologue by the 30-year-old Maria (Mar-eye-a) Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film director Carter Lang. The further narration is conducted from a third-person perspective in eighty-four chapters of terse, controlled and highly visual prose typical of Didion. The protagonist, an unfulfilled actress, recounts her life while recovering from a mental breakdown in an exclusive Neuropsychiatric Institute. The reason for her confinement is purportedly having participated in the suicidal death of a befriended bisexual movie producer, BZ (an abbreviation for benzodiazepines, sedative drugs). The “facts” from Wyeth’s childhood include being raised in the small town of Silver Wells, Nevada, by a gambling, careless father and a neurotic mother who used to “croon to herself” of chimeric yearnings. After graduating from high school in Tonopah, encouraged by her parents, she leaves for New York to become an actress. In the Big Apple, Maria works temporarily as a model and meets Ivan Costello, a psychological blackmailer who does not scruple to use her money and her body. In the city, Maria receives news of her mother's death, possibly a suicide by car accident. Her father dies soon after, leaving useless mineral rights to his business partner and friend Benny Austin. Maria withdraws from acting and modeling, splits up with Ivan, and eventually meets Carter and moves to Hollywood. Later, we find that she and Carter have a 4-year-old daughter Kate, who is under mental and physical “treatment” for some “aberrant chemical in her brain.” Maria truly loves Kate, as indicated by her tender descriptions, her frequent hospital visits, and her determination “to get her out.” Indeed, Kate seems to be the only significant person in Maria’s life. Her love for the girl means more to her than her marriage to the despotic Lang or her affairs with men, including their Hollywood acquaintances Les Goodwin and BZ. In the course of the novel, Maria becomes pregnant, plausibly by Les, and Carter coerces her to abort. The traumatic procedure leaves her mentally shattered, haunted by nightmares of dying children. Seeking oblivion, she plunges into compulsively driving the roads and freeways of southern California, wandering through motels and bars, drinking and chancing sexual encounters with second-rate actors and ex-lovers. She spends a night in jail for car theft and drug possession after a one-night stand with a minor film star, Johnny Waters. Eventually she involves herself in a perverse love quadrangle with Carter, BZ and his wife Helene, which ends abruptly when BZ overdoses on barbiturates in Maria’s hotel bedroom. The book ends with the reclusive Maria planning a new life with Kate, resolved to “keep on playing,” despite her past. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Play It as It Lays」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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