I recently realized that I plan to read everything of Didion's that I can. This is the first of her novels I checked out, and it is a compelling read weaving fact and fiction in a way that sheds light on "counterintelligence", essentially where the action is in politics certainly since 1960 and arguably since the end of WWII.

Didion's story is about Elena McMahon, a woman who is never quite sure who she is as she transitions from reporter to Hollywood mogul wife to reporter again and then flees it all into a deep dirty politics plot from which she cannot escape. McMahon's failing elderly father is an old bull of the American Counterintelligence glory days of the 50s and 60s, and she stands in for him on his last 'score', an arms deal in the middle of the covert Contra War of the mid 1980s.

The book is entertaining even if you are not interested in how our covert government works. But if like me, you are interested in how governments are changed without votes, how power really works beyond the Kabuki of 'democratic elections', The Last Thing He Wanted is a fascinating look at how things might well work in this country. Not just in 1985 or 1963, but today as well.

Didion never wastes a word, and the weird twists and unspoken paranoia that flutters through these pages make this a first rate read. I plan to move on to her earlier novels as the opportunity presents.

Joan Didion political thrillers are singular meta fictional experiences. I know that sounds like what the annoying guy in your sophomore English lit crit intro would say, but it’s true: I haven’t read another thriller that conveys the same sense of narrative unease that her novels do. She’s attempting to write a thriller as if it were a real nonfiction magazine profile or something, which I just think is a cool way to approach fiction.

The recursive metering seen throughout this book can either draw ire or or get one’s groove. Rate accordingly.

“Some real things have happened lately. For a while we felt rich and then we didn’t.” — Joan Didion, opening lines to The Last Thing He Wanted.

The Last Thing He Wanted is set like a Robert Stone novel “on the far frontiers of the Monroe Doctrine.” It's a brisk and cleverly narrated novel. She uses something like Faulkner’s concept of community memory, where everyone know part of the story but no one knows all, including the narrator. The narrator’s frustration at not knowing all is apparent from the tone and is the primary accomplishment of the book. The characters are footnotes to the Iran-Contra Affair, the type who would have passing mentions in a Rand Corp study or the Special Investigator’s final report. They are embroiled in shady, scarcely documented American doings in the countries that surround the “American lake” of the Caribbean where the only law that applies is the law of unintended consequences.

”To the extent that the area in question touches on the lake,” an American diplomats explains “and to the extent that the lake has been historically construed as our lake, it goes without saying that we could have an interest. However.'' “However what?” “We don't track that kind of activity,'' the diplomat then says

All the characters, and even in the narrator, communicate in this elliptical ass-covering style, an ironic governmentese. The action is fast-paced but the reading is slow going, because I kept doubling back to savor a Didion sentence, rolling it around on my tongue.

3.5!! i love didion always and this was really good just didn’t hit as hard as her others for me personally

It would be impossible for a young person—say, a teenager—to comprehend the world of this book now. In DEMOCRACY and LAST THING, Didion was obsessed with sinister business as usual. Now we don’t have any. The foundations—what MSNBC people call “norms”—are being stripped away like copper from the innards of a palatial yacht. Here we have another Durasian novella from Joan—I simply can’t imagine how much Didion would detest Duras if she actually read her! This is a sort of INDIA SONG that accessed both the JFK hit and Iran/Contra at once. It’s about a woman, a familiar Didion woman who is “remote even from herself,” but more significantly it is about the routines and protocols of the men around her—spooks and undercover crooks who cloak their chicaneries in a laconic, cowboy ethos that both Didion and her heroine plainly love. It’s the language of their fathers! But guess what: now it’s the language of Ronald Reagan’s hacky hides killers. The action is small, short, and bracketed by a lot of meta commentary by “Joan Didion.” She has a smallish fiction output but the novels are perfectly achieved: she knows exactly the tone of sardonic shellshock she wants to hit. These works feel from an America very far away, but I think they will be central to the literature of that now-falling-to-pieces nation, foundational texts of potential self-understanding.

This is my first Joan Didion book. Thank you, friend, for recommending her work.
The author writes in such a clear and distinctive voice, using an omniscient but disinterested narrator; one that creates mystery and suspense by revealing the twists and turns in the book's dark and murky plot in small but rewarding increments.
"The Last Thing He Wanted's" most memorable aspect was the complexity of the relationship between its main character and her father. Their story unfolds in the third person, introducing the father in a series of flashbacks as a notorious arms dealer, a wealthy and powerful man. But when the reader meets him, the same man is a frail and demented alcoholic, suffering from mobility issues and significant short-term memory loss. He can't remember that his caregiver daughter is the only surviving family member. Nonetheless, on the strength of their family connection, coupled with the allure of certain details from his intact long-term memory, the daughter finds the motivation to investigate one last piece of unfinished family business.
So I've given the book an excellent rating as a meditation on power and memory, and the subjective nature truth.

I'll admit the impetus for reading this was hearing about the film adaptation, and then subsequently watching the trailer. Haven't seen the film yet, but seems to (necessarily!) veer sharply from the book, since it is both ambiguous and never quite clear about exactly what happens (also, there is no corresponding character to whoever Rosie Perez plays). Anyway, it is a very quick moving story, and the elliptical structure works to keep one involved. I just wish I were a BIT more confident in what the final chapters reveal, but I think it remaining cryptic is one of the strengths of the book. It's sad that an author of Didion's weight and power hasn't written a novel since this one ... 24 years is a long time to wait for another!! :-(

This certainly has Didion's sharp prose. It also evokes the intelligence-ish dealing game well. It discombobulated me a bit more than I could quite keep up with though. I felt a bit lost most of the time and didn't end up with it as much as I felt I should be.

The wait was long (especially if one had already read most of the non-fiction pieces collected in 1992's "After Henry") and this novel, like "A Book of Common Prayer" and "Democracy," is spare while somehow coming across as strangely heavy. The opening few paragraphs are a stunning work of synthesis about the 1980s from a certain point of view -- shrouded, spooky (literally, in the CIA sense of the word). From there, a tedium sets in.

I don't consider this novel one of Didion's successes, but I remember being so elated when it hit the stores; that was one of my rare experiences of letting my anticipation anxiety and fanboy-ness get the best of me. Usually I keep that shit in check.

Plot so intricate that most of it went over my head! But it does seem to be intentionally cryptic. I’m excited to watch the new film adaptation and hope to get a little more clarity.

This is my second piece of fiction to read by Didion, and I much prefer Play It As It Lays.

The undeniable stylishness of this novel made up for its confusing plot and odd pacing. I would never have finished it if it weren’t for the sheer pleasure of Didion’s sentences.

But I’m glad I did. For the sentences.