Joan Didion + the main character and I have the same name = must read! I didn’t end up loving The Last Thing He Wanted, but I’m glad I read it!

Reading this book is like sifting through archival documents—there are lots of moving parts and small details, and you need to piece them together yourself. Didion tells the story in a non-linear fashion that feels unique and cinematic. It’s a novel clearly written by a skilled journalist and screenwriter. Our narrator is inquisitive and precise, examining every conversation or news clip at the sentence level.

That being said, the technical style of this book wasn’t very enjoyable. Didion uses lots of repetition which gets a little… repetitive (haha). That and all the numbered lists give her prose a more mechanical feel than some of her other work.

I can already tell I need to read it again - Didion only tells us the barest details that we absolutely need to work out a quite intricate plot. It's a beautiful, concise book. I loved it.

this is a weird one to rate for me. as always, joan didion's writing is immersive and thought-provoking, but there was something missing here. though it was likely her intention to leave the reader slightly confused and always two steps behind the characters, i was way more than two steps behind the entire time.

for those who are well versed in the political events this book reflects on, it probably would have been less confusing. however, for the general public, it is incredibly hard to keep up. otherwise, her writing and storytelling talents are very well displayed here.

There's authors you adore, authors you abhor, and authors you devour. Didion happens to be the absolute latter. Everything she does takes over and here she slinks into intrigue, a world where everyone who cannot get away with denying can always contextually and purposefully utilize the undercurrent. Elena McMahon finds herself ensnared in plots across borders of government influences to manipulate foreign policy to suit means both a trivial ostentation or a glaring ambiguity. We are told from a distance through the cracked glass pane of speculations on the facts leading up to trunks full of weapons and leaders overthrown and agents (their attributions usually obscured so anyone escapes the blame) fade away and reappear as corpses. There's a rhythm to Didion's style here that at times feels a bit much but as it progresses we begin to see the mantra of the arcane activities of assassins and targets for either can never quite know which side of that coin they'll be. Engaging work.

Man I had no idea that Joan Didion could write thrillers.

I had this book on my shelf for a while - a random buy at a bookstore pre-COVID - and the recent events in Afghanistan inspired me to pick it up. This novel - about conspiracies, international arms dealing, and the USA’s secretive meddling in the affairs of Latin America - was the perfect read with American imperialism on my mind. But more than that - there also came themes of love, of alienation, of inexplicable human motivations and the elusivity of truth.

Elena McMahon had been involved in an incident in the Caribbean - the reason for which being to help her dying father do one last deal. What follows is a piecing together of the incident - its causes, characters, and possible motivations involved -detailing how Elena got in over her head, and how even covert ops can be unaware of their own operations, goals and motivations hidden to all - maybe even themselves.

This is Joan Didion, so the story is a literary thriller. There are no heroes, the story unfolds in bursts of nonlinear time, raising questions and answering others at the end of each chapter and returning to previously set-up scenes to add some light-shedding detail. Repetition and the vague, suggestive language of secrecy are used to great effect. Yet the story was a fast-paced read, and I could hardly put it down. I got caught up in the narrative, even as I was frequently reminded that it was just a narrative.

While the novel has a grand plot, its essence is that of a very human tragedy. Excitement at times gives way to sadness, to a feeling of helplessness, for the story is already over when it begins.

I highly recommend it to anyone who can handle a touch of literary conceit in their thrillers, and literary readers looking for a fast-paced read.

Bf. Crec que només he entès bé la meitat. Joan Didion s'inventa uns codis semàntics quan escriu ficció i si no estàs super atenta des del principi, després sembla que la novel·la estigui escrita en aforismes críptics. Assumeixo la meva part de culpa. Les 3 estrelletes són perquè s'assembla massa a Book of Common Prayer que em va agradar moltíssim, tant, que avui he buscat si estava traduit al català per regalar-li al Bru ja que estic apostant per la seva didionificació, però només està en castellà i es diu "Una liturgia común". Becs.

4 1/2 stars.....outstanding!

A political thriller, very tightly constructed, as sifted through the eyes and voice of a more mature (re: 1995) Joan Didion.

It took a while to get through the stylistic choices, the lack of speech marks, full stops, the like. Then I convinced myself to approach the novel as if it were Trout Mask Replica, the Captain Beefheart album, art you'll benefit from by merely surviving to the end. I'm not sure if it was worthwhile but I'm glad I did it.

This novel from 1996 is set in 1984, and is vaguely related to the murky dealings of the contra scandal. Everything is very shadowy and unclear, and what I managed to understand is a story of an almost-innocent bystander getting caught up in machinations beyond their comprehension. That is : Elena McMahon, dutiful daughter to her aging arms-dealer father, gets on a plane to somewhere in South America to deliver cargo. But the promised payment is not handed over, so she ends up in an unnamed Caribbean island, where it appears something bad is going to go down, probably with some CIA help. In parallel, the narrator, a journalist, who knew Elena slightly, is trying to write a biography of Treat, ambassador-at-large, Johnny-on-the-spot, trouble-magnet whenever something bad is about to go down. Elena and Treat meet... and something bad does go down.

I liked the ambiance of the novel, the vague sense of wheels-within-wheels, of Elena being totally outplayed, outclassed, by various machiavellistic figures. What I didn't like was Joan Didion's overuse of repetition as a stylistic figure, and Elena's apparent passivity. It's not clear why she behaves the way she does, once she lands in that South American jungle and realizes that she's not going to be presented with a nice bag full of dollars. She seems to drift forward, becoming gradually aware that she's caught in a spiderweb woven by people with more insight and resources, but not really doing too much about it, except trying to make sure her daughter, back in the USA, is not at risk. Finally, it's not clear to me what the baddies (the CIA? the DIA? or some renegade foreign office cowboys?) were actually trying to achieve. Is this somehow related to, or inspired by, the invasion of Grenada by the US in 1983?

So : lots of atmosphere, successful creation of a sense of an innocent caught into something they can't control, but heavy-handed stylistic tricks and a heroine the reader can't really understand

The crux of what went on in this book could have fit in a 15 page short story. That it ends up a 220 plus page novel, with a narrative that circles and circles the central event without ever really touching it and yet still manages to remain intriguing and fresh and compellingly page turning is an example of Didion's genius. Some of her sentences just cut right through you. I have to be in a certain mood to read Didion, but boy do I love it when I am.

Si tratta di semplice gusto personale: non mi piace la scrittura di Didion. Ho cercato di farmela piacere ma nulla da fare. Mi spiace. Forse, in futuro, leggerò qualche altro suo titolo.