This is the first book I've read by Joan Didion. Her usual style? Don't know. Endless sentence fragments. Interesting Iran-Contra story buried under CIA spook-talk and insider-isms. Shocking ending. I'll probably watch the movie adaptation, starring Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck, just to see what they did with it.

How fabulous is JD? She is so consistently good and so erudite that it is a joy to open the page and let the words flow over you. This is a great story, I really enjoyed the way she played out the thriller aspect, and I believe it will be made into a movie soon - in the right hands this could be brilliant.

Set in the Central American islands or thereabouts, in the early 1980's when all those arms deals and shady happenings where being whispered about in certain circles, this book seems to me to perfectly capture the strange mix of intensity and listlessness that the tropics induce.

And it's probably true. At least partly ...

Call it a novel.
Call it a political thriller.
Or a deconstruction.
Or a work of journalistic metafiction.
Call it a love story, and then turn once more to page one to pick on the details you missed.
Call it a crusade against the media, who apply a certain spin, who somehow manage to cock it up, leaving you, the reader, with only half the story.
Only you don't know it.
Nobody is truly ever in possession of all the facts.
Fact: Elena McMahon had not planned to walk off the campaign in 1984. But she did.
Fact: Elena McMahon walked off the campaign, retreating to the house of her arms-dealing father in Miami, and into a complex web of—what?
Redactions.
Evasions.
Conspiracies.
Cool detachment is the name of Didion's literary game and this one is no different.
Knowledge of the Iran-Contra Affair might have helped. Maybe not.
Or would it?
If all else fails, finish reading the book.
And then read the summary on Wikipedia.
Now put it back on the shelf, and add it to your reread list.
Next time, savor it.

Joan Didion é aclamada pela critica e não duvido do sucesso junto da maioria dos leitores que acompanham o seu trabalho, no entanto entre mim e a sua narrativa A Última Coisa Que Ele Queria não existiu qualquer ligação do início ao fim. Desde cedo que me senti perdido com esta leitura, tendo voltado atrás para perceber se me conseguia conduzir numa segunda leitura dos primeiros capítulos mas totalmente em vão.
Nesta história encontrei a jornalista Elena McMahon que desiste do seu percurso profissional para exercer relações públicas numa campanha eleitoral para apoiar o pai. Percebi esta premissa no entanto o seu desenvolvimento perante esquemas conturbados de ligações perigosas foi tão complicado que nunca me consegui encontrar com os caminhos seguidos por esta personagem central e muito menos com os restantes envolvidos, ficando maioritariamente perdido em cada novo capítulo ultrapassado.
De início percebi que a escolha perante a mudança por parte de Elena serve como uma tentativa de reaproximação para reconquistar os laços familiares com o pai, estando este em demência, no entanto a forma como a ação segue baralha tanto com a mistura de linguagem e o adensar da história que acabei por trocar por várias vezes personagens, passado e presente onde o poder e os conflitos de interesses reinam. Afinal, Elena sabia do real processo que o pai carregava consigo ou acaba por se ver envolvida num esquema perigoso e complexo?
Não posso dizer que a escrita de Joan Didion seja confusa porque até achei simples e direta, no entanto todas as movimentações numa história tão compacta acabaram por não me ajudar a situar em algum momento na ação para poder criar laços com o enredo e seguir a viagem.

A minha opinião em breve em vídeo em Livros à Lareira com chá!

¿Qué es este libro?, ¿un libro de intrigas y espías?, ¿un libro de amor?, Didión va desarrollando la historia de una manera que te envuelve, en el tiempo, en los recuerdos y en la memoria de una narradora, vale decir, extraordinaria.
¿Como una periodista del Washington Post se involucra en un entramado el que poco a poco, se hierve sin que se de cuenta, en una venta ilegal de armas?.
Y lo que es más sorprendente, se desprende de su hija, se enamora también, y también! el destino la hace sufrir por ello.
Elena Mc Mahon es el centro de esta novela, es la periodista, madre, mujer, y en la que Didion pone toda su pasión de escritora para enamorarnos de ese personaje.
No obstante hay otro personaje en la novela que es un enigma, que es la omnisciente narradora, y que es extraordinaria, quien se sabe el caso a todos los niveles, es más, parece la misma Elena, ¿lo es? No creo, pero nos gustaría que lo sea.

Re-read. I admired this on my first reading, but I also under-rated it. This is as accomplished as any of Joan Didion's novels and one of the finest political thrillers (among many other things) I've encountered. On first reading, I went too fast, letting myself get pulled along by the rhythmic riptide of the prose. On a second read, crucial background details became more apparent and the love story that's slipped almost imperceptibly into the crux of the narrative made complete sense. This is the rare novel that's politically savvy, propulsively plotted, structurally inventive, and aims to subvert literary conventions as actively as any dogma. It's an examination of America's ruthless role in Central America in the mid-'80s which serves as both mirror and microcosm for so much else.

Didion said she liked reading things that compelled you to read them in one sitting. It took three sittings for me to complete this, but I wanted to complete it in one. Don't read this if you are looking for thriller - this is more of a deconstructed thriller. Read it for the thrill of the mysterious way this book holds itself together when, in other less capable hands, it would threaten to unravel, to drop the tension that keeps the writing alive. The main character here is not the narrator, not a person really, but a year or a time period (the 1980s) in which stories of corruption, spies, gun wars, misplaced foreign aid fortunes, etc. wove themselves into the heartmind of a generation. This is what Didion captures here. This is how she digests the slippery things that threaten to overtake a heart, or a nation. And then under it all, is a question that plagued her - what does it mean to fail or succeed at motherhood? What does it mean to do right by one's child? What if all you can give isn't enough?

Uncovering truth, including the most elusive of truths; assassinations, covert foreign expeditions, military intelligence operations etc., is not a linear endeavor. Information comes piece-meal, out of sync, somewhat nonsensically. It doesn't matter if you're a journalist, an historian, or a conspiracy theorist - history is vague. Truth is often unknowable. Facts become muddy with time. Sometimes intentionally. The author of this story, whoever they are, acknowledges this, and Didion allows them to indulge the now somewhat rare art of treating the reader as a sentient intelligent being. Capable of discernment. This idea completely submerged me in this novel. You will finish it not really knowing what you read. You will finish it not really knowing what really happened. Not really knowing who wrote it. But you will also finish it knowing that you were part of it. That we are all indeed part of the what happens while we are sleeping with our eyes fully open.

5 stars for style but sadly this book just wasn’t for me. Thrillers aren’t really my thing, even less so political ones, and I had a hard time following everything in this one.

Ugh! Unnecessarily complicated, would have been much better if told in a linear fashion as Didion just seemed to be playing a game with the narrative. Maybe that was the point, but other novelists do this much better. Also, lots of padding, so much repetition, not effective at all if the idea was to build tension. Given that the Iran-Contra scandal was much more interesting than this book makes it, I just started to research articles on it instead of reading the novel. I finished, but only because my book club is reading it.

Lance Cleland (Captain): A friend who knows my literary predilections recommended a spy novel earlier this month. I was shocked to learn it was by Joan Didion. I had somehow missed the memo on The Last Thing He Wanted. When I looked for her work on the shelf, I always went strait for some vintage copy of Play It as It Lays or to the early nonfiction, always passing over her last novel because the title was too vague, the cover image of file folders not helping the case against its dimness. But this book is anything but dull. The story of a daughter and father and the arms deal that brings them somewhat together is told at such a clip that I was forty pages deep before I had the thought that, damn, this is Didion at her best. Unsentimental and terse, she leans against the traditional architecture of the thriller and then slowly chips away at the foundation, inventing something the likes of which I have never read before. I love how nonjudgmental this work is. How there are no easily identifiable good or bad characters. There is just the world, the people in it, their actions and the consequences of them. Heartbreak masks itself as politics. Love comes in the form of a double-cross. Like a good spy, Didion has created a perfectly executed persona with The Last Thing He Wanted. She has disguised her genius in genre.