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A review by beatrice_k
The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion
5.0
A Joan Didion crime novel?
What an unexpected gem! Or expected?
Her style easily lends itself to the genre. Plain, unobtrusive, never overstating or embellishing. It all comes together to create a truly satisfying novel. But beyond just her style, what made this such a satisfying read for me was that it felt like the joining of all things Didion. The house in Malibu, the daughter, the life of a journalist, the knowledge of the tropics and especially the knowledge of the Bay, we've gotten that before in what she's revealed in her previously published nonfiction. It's amazing to be able to trace that back, see what it is to "write what you know."
I would recommend this to any Joan Didion fan. Easily. Enjoy the beauty of her final romance, friends.
"Maybe she told him who she was because he ordered Early Times. Maybe she looked at him and saw the fog off the Farallons, maybe he looked at her and saw the hot desert twilight. Maybe they looked at each other and knew that nothing they could do would matter as much as the slightest tremor of the earth, the blind trembling of the Pacific in its bowl, the heavy snows closing the mountain passes, the rattlers in the dry grass, the sharks cruising the deep cold water through the Golden Gate. 'The seal's wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.'
Oh yes.
This is a romance after all. One more romance."
What an unexpected gem! Or expected?
Her style easily lends itself to the genre. Plain, unobtrusive, never overstating or embellishing. It all comes together to create a truly satisfying novel. But beyond just her style, what made this such a satisfying read for me was that it felt like the joining of all things Didion. The house in Malibu, the daughter, the life of a journalist, the knowledge of the tropics and especially the knowledge of the Bay, we've gotten that before in what she's revealed in her previously published nonfiction. It's amazing to be able to trace that back, see what it is to "write what you know."
I would recommend this to any Joan Didion fan. Easily. Enjoy the beauty of her final romance, friends.
"Maybe she told him who she was because he ordered Early Times. Maybe she looked at him and saw the fog off the Farallons, maybe he looked at her and saw the hot desert twilight. Maybe they looked at each other and knew that nothing they could do would matter as much as the slightest tremor of the earth, the blind trembling of the Pacific in its bowl, the heavy snows closing the mountain passes, the rattlers in the dry grass, the sharks cruising the deep cold water through the Golden Gate. 'The seal's wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.'
Oh yes.
This is a romance after all. One more romance."