I chose this book for two reasons.
One, I wanted to read something by Didion, but couldn’t face her most famous book, THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING because I feared the subject of recovering from her husband’s death was too grim. I have lost my youthful ability to feel invincible while reading about death.
Two, Bret Easton Ellis, is on the back cover, saying “for a few decades,this was my favourite American novel .. revelatory.” Now usually I take a writer’s recommendation of a book because I admire them. In this case it was morbid curiosity. Let’s be clear, Ellis is obviously a misogynist, and anyone who admires the drivel that is AMERICAN PSYCHO probably is too. So how can it be that he admires a woman’s book so much? That’s very unexpected.
Having read the book, it is fully to be expected. It is about a lady who is so unhappy that she will agree to have sex with anyone, even if actively unpleasant. Ideal for Ellis, it’s no wonder he loves it. It’s basically all the rape with none of the questions.
That said, I’m glad to have read it. It’s remarkably cleverly done, with fragments of chapters that go back and forth in time, evoking a mid-twentieth century Hollywood that is unnervingly believable, and cohering into the story of a woman’s crumbling life. But at least some men got to have sex with her on the way. That’s all that really matters.