This should have been a good story. This should have been an interesting insight into a historical event. I should have had a clear understanding of how the historical event went down at the end. It wasn't and I don't. This is one of those really unfortunate books where the overly stylized writing gets in the way of communicating the story and you are left completely confused and annoyed at the end. The author in no way causes you to be invested in the characters and you really don't care what happens to them. It's just a poorly written book and I feel like it was a waste of my time.

weird.

I must read more Didion. The novel is set during the Reagan era Iran-Contra scandal. Elena McMahon picks up her father's "last" deal, which involves flying guns onto an island in the Caribbean for nameless delivery to a nameless place. She flies under government radar, often abandoned, expected to know when and to whom to talk. And saying that is to surmise government policy? father who can be trusted? colleague? husband? pilot?

Written in 1996, it is more current than most newspapers today. They made a movie of it, which receieved extremely bad reviews even with a stunning cast. But as The Atlantic noted at the time, "While the story is fictional, the book is deeply attentive to real government duplicity during the Reagan era, in which 'even the most apparently straightforward piece of information could at any time explode.'

THAT is what carries the book. Language, integrity, personhood have been jettisoned to carry out the implied directives of "the guy upstairs", whether Department of State or the Senate or the Pentagon. Didion can create these webs of trying to trace what is actually truth like no other writer I've come across. Beyond brilliant. Masterful. And so horridly current.

DNF (I'm mad I wasted my time suffering to get 50% through). I was happy when I returned this POS to the library and got a Ray Bradbury book. I want to ENJOY reading, not be tortured by the likes of Joan Didion.

I don't care for Joan Didion I tried reading one of her books in college and I couldn't get through it I just was like wait what's going on. Clearly she's a liberal because she just talks word salad writes a lot but nothing is said. it's like listening to biden's press secretary or camel face Harris, just talks a lot of word salad but nothing is said. I knew it going into it a few pages all this descriptions of really nothing of consequence the only reason why this gets published is because she's Joan Didion who for some reason is fashioned as this great author. I bet if Joan were alive today and writing she wouldn't get published at all. Mass delusion of people saying oh Joan Didion! and she's great The emperor's New clothes but the one star reviews sum it up.

I don't understand her style at all she does is puke words out on the paper and it's next to impossible to connect why they're relevant to any of the characters or story. Read the one star reviews the book just meanders all over the place had no idea what was going on it's not even like any of her descriptions are good of anything but she's describing everything of everybody that aren't even necessarily or oddly connected to each other so weird unnecessarily complicated complete non-linear book. I'd rather read an airport novel where things make sense and this could have been a good story if one of these airport novelists Patterson or whomever wrote it I don't know if she's trying to be stylish with her writing but I don't consider it style it's just dumb and I'm mad that I didn't drop the book sooner I got it halfway through it all these disparate moving parts that are moving in circles going nowhere as one star review what a horrible and boring book and they made a Netflix movie or series of it which is completely going to be rewritten and I don't know if that's any good but that's done all the time where they take a story and then rewrite it so it makes it interesting so because this was made into a Netflix movie doesn't mean it's a testament to the book I'll try one more Joan Didion and that's it

TW: Morte, Assassinatos; Linguagem Explícita

Joan Didion conquistou-me com O Ano do Pensamento Mágico e Noites Azuis, porque há uma crueza na sua escrita que não deixa de comover, sobretudo, quando sabemos que é a sua vida descrita nos dois livros. Por isso, estava muito curiosa por ler mais da sua autoria.

Infelizmente, a experiência de leitura com A Última Coisa Que Ele Queria não foi a melhor. A premissa é interessante, mas a sequência narrativa é demasiado confusa, perde-se em linhas paralelas que nada acrescentam à temática central. Portanto, torna-se difícil acompanhar a conspiração, a manipulação e todos os processos ilícitos que tenta desmascarar.

O suspense é evidente, mas não me relacionei com a história.

Halfway through I would have unhesitatingly declared this the secret summit of the entire Didion canon (alongside Democracy) but a few highly ill-conceived detours in the final stretches do a shocking amount to take the edges off this bitter snake of a book. Come for the elusive and allusive Washingtonese incantations but maybe jump ship before the mawkish hobbles toward genuine romance and (worst of all) the completely superfluous retrograde gay character who (sigh) does little else than throws diva-esque tantrums (when he's not literally singing showtunes, that is.)

i'm thinking this is the very best of the didion novels - it's a kind of thriller, which might surprise her readers, but the political aspects will be familiar of those who have encountered SALVADOR, chapters from MIAMI, and even essays from THE WHITE ALBUM.

here she's presenting events that are posited in reportage, so the narrative is so strong - this is didion country - with an opening paragraph that grips like a vice:

"Some real things have happened lately. For a while we felt rich and then we didn't. For a while we thought time was money, find the time and the money comes with it. Make money for example by flying the Concorde. Moving Fast. Get the big suite, the multi-line telephones, get room service on one, get the valet on two, premium service, out by nine back by one. Download all data. Uplink Prague, get some conference calls going. Sell Allied Signal, buy Cypress Minerals, work the management plays. Plug into this news cycle, get the wires raw, nod out on the noise ..."

and it don't stop. the messages and the events and the places and the people and what do you know, a woman is urged to do a job for her father that takes her places she could not have known existed and what she discovers pulls back the curtain on international intrigue that connects to the Reagan administration and shady places south of the border.

and that's all i'm going to say, because that might be enough to peak your interest. at least i hope it does because this is joan frikkn didion at her best and that's no small claim.

It was Reagan's "Morning in America" -- maybe -- but it was a strange time with America's dicey involvement in Nicaragua, Grenada, Beirut and other hot spots around the world. Joan Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted is the story of Elena McMahon, daughter of an arms merchant who was involved in arming the Contras to battle the Nicaraguan Sandinistas.

As the father slips into old age, Elena takes over for her father -- it being "the last thing he wanted." As Elena goes down that particular rabbit hole, she makes the final delivery, is stiffed of the expected million dollar payment, and winds up in a Caribbean limbo as the various players involved, including the US Government, figure out what to do with her.

The final outcome can't be good, and isn't, the upshot being that that particular rabbit hole leads inevitably to a slow spiral down a very dark alley.

Isn't this the writer who, as a young girl, voted for Goldwater?

This book was very slow, did not capture my attention at all as my mind kept wandering. I was reading the words but not absorbing anything. Joan Didion is one of my favorite authors but this book was unfortunately a dud :(

4.5 ⭐️

I’m sorry I didn’t like this ☹️ I think I just don’t connect with didions writing style- I would get confused and there were so many moving parts and I couldn’t tell at what point in time we were in at any point throughout the book lol. I really wanted to like it because it’s such a complicated and intense story but I didn’t. Sorryyyy

The writing is good but the subject is a Little dated by now, in an historical sense, and eternal in another historical sense. There's not a lot of suspense here in that it's fairly well given who diez and who does not, although the exact manner is left for the actual moment of termination. As for the conspiracy stuff surrounding a thinly disguised versión of Iran-Contra, there's nothing new about shadowy figures moving arms around to support groups in which governments have an interest, and vaguely linking these shadowy figures to Dallas 1963 and Kennedy is hardly new ground either. Well-written but Little else to recommend it unless you're still upset about Iran-Contra, in this case, you are the choir to whom this book preaches.