Play It As It Lays (Google Books ⧉, Amazon ⧉, Bookshop ⧉)

by Joan Didion

Contributed by NobleBibliophile506

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References To Other Books

Direct References

I Ching

I watch a hummingbird, throw the I Ching but never read the coins, keep my mind in the now.

Gaslight

Quite often with Carter she felt like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, another frivolous thought.

American Red Cross Handbook

She could not think where she had learned all these tricks. Probably in her mother’s American Red Cross Handbook, gray with a red cross on the cover.

2-D

“As a writer, it might interest you to know that Philip Dunne once had 2-D.” “I’m not a writer,” Maria said. “Excuse me, it was Sidney Howard.”

Showboat

At three in the afternoon she had been the only customer in the marina restaurant and it had been a dispiriting thirty or forty minutes, sliced beets staining the crab legs and a couple of waitresses arguing listlessly and a piped medley from Showboat.

Oxnard-Port Hueneme telephone book

turned the pages of the Oxnard-Port Hueneme telephone book. There were fourteen Wyeths listed, twenty-three Langs and twenty Goodwins.

Dark Passage

She said nothing. "That's funny, Maria. That's a line from Dark Passage." "I know it.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Her books include Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, The White Album, The Year of Magical Thinking, and, most recently, South and West: From a Notebook.

The White Album

Her books include Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, The White Album, The Year of Magical Thinking, and, most recently, South and West: From a Notebook.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Her books include Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, The White Album, The Year of Magical Thinking, and, most recently, South and West: From a Notebook.

South and West: From a Notebook

Her books include Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, The White Album, The Year of Magical Thinking, and, most recently, South and West: From a Notebook.

Also By Also

Also By Also by Joan Didion

Blue Nights

Joan Didion Blue Nights We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

Blue Nights We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

The Year Of Magical Thinking

We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live The Year Of Magical Thinking Where I Was From

Where I Was From

The Year Of Magical Thinking Where I Was From Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11

Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11

Where I Was From Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 Political Fictions

Political Fictions

Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 Political Fictions The Last Thing He Wanted

The Last Thing He Wanted

Political Fictions The Last Thing He Wanted After Henry

After Henry

Political Fictions The Last Thing He Wanted After Henry

Democracy

After Henry Miami Democracy Salvador

The White Album

Salvador The White Album A Book Of Common Prayer

A Book Of Common Prayer

The White Album A Book Of Common Prayer Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

A Book Of Common Prayer Slouching Towards Bethlehem Run River

Run River

Slouching Towards Bethlehem Run River

Referenced By

No books reference this book

Places Referenced

Silver Wells, California
"…but Maria did: it was larger than Silver Wells."
Reno, Nevada
"Details: I was born in Reno, Nev., and moved nine years later to Silver Wells, Nev., pop. then 28, now O."
Tonopah, Nevada
"New York: what sense did that make? An eighteen-year-old girl from Silver Wells, Nevada, graduates from the Consolidated Union High School in Tonopah and goes to New York to take acting lessons, how do you figure it?"
Boca Raton, Florida
"two honeymooners, natives of Detroit, found dead in their Scout camper near Boca Raton, a coral snake still coiled in the thermal blanket."
Detroit, Michigan
"two honeymooners, natives of Detroit, found dead in their Scout camper near Boca Raton, a coral snake still coiled in the thermal blanket."
New York, New York
"New York: what sense did that make? An eighteen-year-old girl from Silver Wells, Nevada, graduates from the Consolidated Union High School in Tonopah and goes to New York to take acting lessons, how do you figure it?"
Las Vegas, Nevada
"Benny Austin went back to Vegas, I ran into him in the Flamingo a few years ago."
Flamingo, Las Vegas, Nevada
"I ran into him in the Flamingo a few years ago."
Montego Bay, Jamaica
"I was sent twice to Montego Bay to get some color back in my face"
Encino, Los Angeles, California
"I try not to hear the air conditioner in that bedroom in Encino."
Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"“I go to the Wilshire or the Beverly Hills,” I say."
Beverly Hills, California
"“I go to the Wilshire or the Beverly Hills,” I say."
Beverly Hills, California
"the summer Carter stopped living in the house in Beverly Hills"
Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"Not somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard, not on her way to the freeway, but actually on the freeway."
San Diego, California
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
Harbor Freeway, Los Angeles, California
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
California, United States
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
Santa Monica, California
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
Santa Ana, California
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
Pasadena, California
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
Ventura, California
"she drove the San Diego to the Harbor, the Harbor up to the Hollywood, the Hollywood to the Golden State, the Santa Monica, the Santa Ana, the Pasadena, the Ventura."
Normandie, Los Angeles, California
"Normandie ¼ Vermont ¾ Harbor Fwy 1. Again and again she returned to an intricate stretch just south of the interchange where successful passage from the Hollywood onto the Harbor required a diagonal move across four lanes of traffic."
Harbor Freeway, Los Angeles, California
"Normandie ¼ Vermont ¾ Harbor Fwy 1. Again and again she returned to an intricate stretch just south of the interchange where successful passage from the Hollywood onto the Harbor required a diagonal move across four lanes of traffic."
San Pedro, Los Angeles, California
"in a scrap metal yard in San Pedro"
Palmdale, California
"on the main street of Palmdale"
Foothill Boulevard, West Covina, California
"the most efficient route to Foothill Boulevard in West Covina"
Culver City, California
"Maria had seen it twice, once at a studio preview and a second time by herself, at a drive-in in Culver City, and neither time did she have any sense that the girl on the screen was herself."
Park Avenue, New York City, New York, United States
"The tulips on Park Avenue looked dirty and I was sent twice to Montego Bay to get some color back in my face"
California, United States
"It was not until they moved to California and Carter began cutting the film together that she entirely realized what he was doing."
Eastern Europe, Europe
"The picture lasted seventy-four minutes and had won a prize at a festival in Eastern Europe and Maria did not like to look at it."
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
"She had once heard that students at UCLA and USC talked about using her the way commercial directors talked about using actresses who got a million dollars a picture, but she had never talked to any of them."
USC, Los Angeles, California
"She had once heard that students at UCLA and USC talked about using her the way commercial directors talked about using actresses who got a million dollars a picture, but she had never talked to any of them."
La Costa, Carlsbad, California
"They had already talked about Helene’s week at La Costa and they had already talked about an actress who had been admitted to UCLA Neuropsychiatry with her wrists cut (the papers said exhaustion, but BZ knew things like that, knew about people, that was why she had called him)"
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
"…an actress who had been admitted to UCLA Neuropsychiatry with her wrists cut (the papers said exhaustion, but BZ knew things like that, knew about people, that was why she had called him)"
Pasadena, California
"Strobe lights in Pasadena."
Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, California
"he almost died on the table at Cedars."
New York, New York
"he’s in from New York."
San Bernardino, California
"But she had driven out the San Bernardino and up the Barstow and instead of turning back at Barstow (she had been out that far before but never that late in the day, it was past time to navigate back, she was out too far too late, the rhythm was lost) she kept driving."
Barstow, California
"But she had driven out the San Bernardino and up the Barstow and instead of turning back at Barstow (she had been out that far before but never that late in the day, it was past time to navigate back, she was out too far too late, the rhythm was lost) she kept driving."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"When she turned off at Baker it was 115° and she was picking up Vegas on the radio and she was within sixty miles of where Carter was making the picture."
Chateau Marmont, West Hollywood, California
"“Unless you’ve got an á deux going at the Marmont. Or wherever it is he stays.”"
Santa Monica Canyon, Santa Monica, California
"“At the table on the terrace where Maria and BZ sat for dinner there were a French director, his cinematographer, and two English Lesbians who lived in Santa Monica Canyon.”"
Whisky a Go Go, West Hollywood, California
"“Shit no. You have to be able to get her into the Whisky.”"
Acapulco, Mexico
"Either there were the sulky young men BZ met in places like Acapulco and Kitzbühel and Tangier or there were Helene’s friends, the women with whom she shopped and planned restorative weeks at Palm Springs and La Costa, the women with the silk Pucci shirts and the periodically tightened eye lines and the husbands on perpetual location."
Kitzbühel, Austria
"Either there were the sulky young men BZ met in places like Acapulco and Kitzbühel and Tangier or there were Helene’s friends, the women with whom she shopped and planned restorative weeks at Palm Springs and La Costa, the women with the silk Pucci shirts and the periodically tightened eye lines and the husbands on perpetual location."
Tangier, Morocco
"Either there were the sulky young men BZ met in places like Acapulco and Kitzbühel and Tangier or there were Helene’s friends, the women with whom she shopped and planned restorative weeks at Palm Springs and La Costa, the women with the silk Pucci shirts and the periodically tightened eye lines and the husbands on perpetual location."
Palm Springs, California
"Either there were the sulky young men BZ met in places like Acapulco and Kitzbühel and Tangier or there were Helene’s friends, the women with whom she shopped and planned restorative weeks at Palm Springs and La Costa, the women with the silk Pucci shirts and the periodically tightened eye lines and the husbands on perpetual location."
Santa Barbara, California
"she was sure that she had met him three years before, at someone’s house in Santa Barbara."
Coast Highway, Los Angeles, California
"Once they were off the Coast Highway he pulled over to the curb and stopped the car."
Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"“Just a doctor. On Wilshire.”"
Saks Fifth Avenue, Los Angeles, California
"“He was near Saks,” she whispered finally. “I was having my hair done at Saks.”"
San Vicente Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"it seemed to her that they had once been to dinner at somebody’s house who lived off San Vicente around here, she could not remember whose house it had been but there had been Japanese food and women with long handcrafted earrings and it had been summer."
San Vicente, California
"Late that night sitting alone in the dark by the pool she remembered whose house it had been out off San Vicente with the Japanese food"
Chasen's, Beverly Hills, California
"He had neither met Freddy Chaikin at Chasen’s nor called to say that he was not coming."
Los Angeles County, California
"He was going to give her the telephone number of the only man in Los Angeles County who did clean work."
Cozumel, Mexico
"The food was unspeakable, my clothes mildewed in the closet, you can have Cozumel," BZ’s mother said."
Machu Picchu, Peru
"Also Machu Picchu," she added, slapping down another card."
Pacific Ocean, Earth
"The late sun glazed the Pacific."
La Costa, Carlsbad, California
"Either there were the sulky young men BZ met in places like Acapulco and Kitzbühel and Tangier or there were Helene’s friends, the women with whom she shopped and planned restorative weeks at Palm Springs and La Costa, the women with the silk Pucci shirts and the periodically tightened eye lines and the husbands on perpetual location."
Baker, California, United States
"On the tenth day of October at quarter past four in the afternoon with a dry hot wind blowing through the passes Maria found herself in Baker."
Chasen's, Beverly Hills, California
"Carter was driving too fast because he had to meet Freddy Chaikin and a writer from New York at Chasen’s at seven o’clock."
Pebble Beach, California
"The last time I was in Pebble Beach," Helene said, "you served at quarter to eleven."
New York, New York
"She had not cried for her mother since the bad season in New York, the season when she had done nothing but walk and cry and lose so much weight that the agency refused to book her."
Tonopah, Nevada
"What had she been doing in New York at the instant her mother lost control of the car outside Tonopah. What was she doing in Tonopah anyway."
New York, New York
"“Mr. Goodwin, New York, three times, you’re to call immediately.”"
New York, New York
"“This is Maria,” she said helplessly when Felicia Goodwin picked up the telephone in New York."
Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"When she got back into town she drove aimlessly down Sunset, pulled into a drive-in at the comer of La Brea, and, briefly flushed into purposefulness by a Coca-Cola, walked barefoot across the hot asphalt to a telephone booth."
La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California
"When she got back into town she drove aimlessly down Sunset, pulled into a drive-in at the comer of La Brea, and, briefly flushed into purposefulness by a Coca-Cola, walked barefoot across the hot asphalt to a telephone booth."
Mexico City, Mexico
"“Mexico City, Guadalajara.”"
Fremont Street, Las Vegas, Nevada
"drag Fremont Street in Vegas with Earl Lee Atkins when she was sixteen years old"
Las Vegas, Nevada
"go out on the desert between Vegas and Boulder and drink beer from half-quart cans"
Boulder, Colorado
"go out on the desert between Vegas and Boulder and drink beer from half-quart cans"
New York, New York
"the exact way the light came through the shutters in his bedroom in New York, the exact colors of the striped sheets she had put on his bed"
Maryland, United States
"a motel room in which they had once spent a week in Maryland."
West Twelfth Street, Los Angeles
"she and the baby and Kate were living on West Twelfth Street with Ivan Costello."
Cozumel, Mexico
"“You’re going away?” “Cozumel,” Maria said. “Mexico.”"
Rome, Italy
"For almost two hours she studied an old issue of Vogue she picked up in the poolhouse, her attention fixed particularly on the details of the life led in New York and Rome by the wife of an Italian industrialist."
Ventura Freeway, Los Angeles, California
"“Ventura Freeway north, you got that all right? You know what exit?”"
Indianapolis, Indiana
"Maybe that sounds like a step down, a Cad to a Camaro, but I’ve got my eye on this particular Camaro, exact model of the pace car in the Indianapolis 500."
Silver Wells, California
"…a picture of herself as a ten‐year‐old sitting on the front steps of the house in Silver Wells reading the gray book with the red cross on the cover…"
Las Vegas, Nevada
"…her father was not in this picture, keep him out of it, say he had gone into Vegas with Benny Austin…"
Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, California
"I want a very large steak," she said to Les Goodwin in a restaurant on Melrose at eight o’clock that night."
New York, New York
"She had flown out from New York on Friday and then it was Sunday and Benny Austin was there for Sunday dinner and after dinner they would all drive down to Vegas to put Maria back on the airplane."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"She had flown out from New York on Friday and then it was Sunday and Benny Austin was there for Sunday dinner and after dinner they would all drive down to Vegas to put Maria back on the airplane."
McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
"That night as the plane taxied out onto the runway at McCarran Maria had kept her face pressed against the window for as long as she could see them, her mother and father and Benny Austin, waving at the wrong window."
Pebble Beach, California
"“Helene’s going up to Pebble Beach to spend the weekend with BZ’s mother,” Carter said when he called from the desert."
Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"“It’s nothing,” the doctor on Wilshire said when she finally went."
Interstate 80, United States
"Morty Landau, I predicted it, he’s in love with you. You’ve got a guest-star on a two-part Interstate 80."
Interstate 80, United States
"By late afternoon of her third day’s work on Interstate 80 there were involuntary pain lines on her forehead and she could not stand entirely upright for more than a few seconds."
San Francisco, California
"she thought about calling Les Goodwin—it would be all right to call him, she knew that Felicia was in San Francisco—but she did not."
Beverly Hills, California
"On the morning a sink backed up in the house in Beverly Hills she looked in the classified for another place to sleep."
New York, New York
"In November the heat broke, and Carter went to New York to cut the picture, and Maria still had the dream."
Capitol Records Tower, Los Angeles, California
"In December the Christmas tree on top of the Capitol Records Tower came and went, and Maria had Kate for three days."
La Brea, Los Angeles, California
"They drove up and down La Brea looking for a Christmas tree and had Christmas dinner at Les and Felicia Goodwin’s new house and Kate smashed the Victorian doll."
Melrose and Sunset, Los Angeles, California
"In January there were poinsettias in front of all the bungalows between Melrose and Sunset, and the rain set in, and Maria wore not sandals but real shoes."
Ralph’s Market
"The woman was sitting next to Maria at the snack counter in Ralph’s Market."
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
"“Mexico City, Guadalajara.”"
Beverly Hills, California
"Always he mentioned a plan to use the house in Beverly Hills for “purposes which would in no way concern” her."
Encino, Los Angeles, California
"…what was happening in this bedroom in Encino, it could not last forever…"
Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"He was wearing a pumpkin velour beach robe and wraparound glasses and she had found him not in the apartment marked “Mgr.” but out on Fountain Avenue, hosing down the sidewalk."
Fountain Avenue, Los Angeles, California, United States
"You’ve got a $1500-a-month house sitting empty in Beverly Hills, and you’re living in a furnished apartment on Fountain Avenue."
Tujunga Wash, Los Angeles, California, United States
"Maria lay on the bed watching a television news film of a house about to slide into the Tujunga Wash."
Joshua Tree, California, United States
"The day’s slide and flood news was followed by a report of a small earth tremor centered near Joshua Tree, 4.2 on the Richter Scale,"
Santa Monica, California
"At two o’clock they met Carter and the lawyers outside the courtroom in Santa Monica, and at two-thirty Maria swore and Helene confirmed that the defendant, Carter Lang, had repeatedly struck and in other ways humiliated the plaintiff, Mrs. Maria Lang."
San Francisco, California
"“I’ve got a meeting at the beach with this guy from San Francisco I told you about,” Carter had said."
Angel Beach, California
"it was the summer Carter was cutting Angel Beach."
Mexico City, Mexico
"“Let’s go to Mexico city tonight,” BZ said."
Churubusco, Mexico City
"“You, me, Helene, I don’t know, maybe Larry Kulik, just fly down for a couple of days, Susannah Wood’s there now doing some interiors at Churubusco.”"
Beverly Hills, California
"But by dawn she was always back in the house in Beverly Hills, uneasy in the queer early light, plagued by her own and his own and Kate’s own manifold histories, certain that BZ and Larry Kulik and all their kind recognized her in a way that Les Goodwin might not want to, recognized her, knew her, had her number, understood as she did that the still center of the daylight world was never a house by the sea but the corner of Sunset and La Brea."
Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California
"understood as she did that the still center of the daylight world was never a house by the sea but the corner of Sunset and La Brea. In that empty sunlight Kate could do no lessons, and the mussels on any shore Maria knew were toxic."
New York, New York
"“I’m going to New York for a few days,” she said to Carter."
Beverly Hills, California
"…in the instant’s confusion of running into Carter on the street in Beverly Hills the idea simultaneously materialized and assumed a real plausibility."
East River, New York City
"All that day Maria thought of fetuses in the East River, translucent as jellyfish, floating past the big sewage outfalls with the orange peels."
Ocho Rios, Jamaica
"Once a long time before Maria had worked a week in Ocho Rios with a girl who had just had an abortion."
New York, New York
"It seemed that it was a hard time for abortions in New York, there had been arrests, no one wanted to do it."
Encino, Los Angeles, California
"Maria tried now to put what had happened in Encino into the same spirited perspective"
Coldwater, Los Angeles, California
"“Where you living now.” “Off Coldwater, same place. O.K.?”"
Beverly Hills, California
"The house in Beverly Hills overflowed with sugar, corn-muffin mix, frozen roasts and Spanish onions."
New York, New York
"“Leonard’s in New York for ten days,” Helene said as soon as Maria had hung up the telephone."
Port Hueneme, California
"After that she had walked on the gravelly sand and she had driven aimlessly to Port Hueneme and back to Oxnard."
Oxnard, California
"After that she had walked on the gravelly sand and she had driven aimlessly to Port Hueneme and back to Oxnard."
Los Angeles, California
"To hear the sound of her own footsteps Maria stood up and walked to the pay phone by the public toilet and asked the operator to try the number in Los Angeles again."
Oxnard, California
"She sat in the motel room near the Southern Pacific tracks in Oxnard and waited for Les Goodwin to call."
Port Hueneme, California
"turned the pages of the Oxnard-Port Hueneme telephone book."
Morro Bay, California
"wrapped together like children in a room by the sea in Morro Bay."
Big Sur, California
"We could go on up to Big Sur."
Sands, Las Vegas, Nevada
"walk through the Sands or Caesar’s alone after midnight."
Caesar’s, Las Vegas, Nevada
"walk through the Sands or Caesar’s alone after midnight."
Beverly Hills, California
"carry a Yorkshire in Beverly Hills."
Yorkshire, England
"carry a Yorkshire in Beverly Hills."
Cannes, France
"I came by because I’ll be away, I wanted to tell you—you know the picture’s entered at Cannes."
Paris, France
"After Cannes he seemed to be in London, and after that in Paris again, where he appeared on television discussing the auteur principle."
Western Street, Los Angeles, California
"Maria stood in the sun on the Western street and waited for the young agent from Freddy Chaikin’s office to back his Volkswagen past the Writers’ Building to where she was."
Writers’ Building, Los Angeles, California
"…back his Volkswagen past the Writers’ Building to where she was."
Romaine, California
"Once in her car she drove as far as Romaine and then pulled over, put her head on the steering wheel and cried as she had not cried since she was a child, cried out loud."
New Havana Ballroom, Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
"Maria drove down to the New Havana Ballroom on Sunset and, trembling, made a telephone call."
Los Angeles, California
"It was five o’clock in Los Angeles and eight in New York and he was drunk."
Los Angeles, California
"There hasn’t been a print in Los Angeles all week."
Beverly Hills, California
"You’ve got a $1500-a-month house sitting empty in Beverly Hills, and you’re living in a furnished apartment on Fountain Avenue."
Encino, Los Angeles, California
"that she had left the point in a bedroom in Encino."
Interstate 80, United States
"She was more than safe, she was all right: she had seen herself on Interstate 80 just before the news and she looked all right."
Silverlake, Los Angeles, California
"The hypnotist would receive a few interested clients in the privacy of his Silverlake home."
New York, New York
"It was five o’clock in Los Angeles and eight in New York and he was drunk."
Flamingo, Las Vegas, Nevada
"Maria sat on a couch in the ladies’ room of the Flamingo with the attendant and a Cuban who was killing the hour between her ten o’clock and midnight dates and she knew that she could not go back out to the crap tables."
Sands, Las Vegas, Nevada
"“Not the Sands, I could hardly get through the Sands tonight.”"
McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
"Somehow she had never expected to see Benny Austin again: in her mind he was always in her father’s pickup, or standing with her mother and father on the tarmac at McCarran waving at the wrong window."
Los Angeles, California
"Benny? Can you hear me? You come see me the next time you’re in Los Angeles, all right? Promise?"
McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
"You remember the last time you saw me? Remember? You and Mother and Daddy put me on the plane at McCarran? And before that we ate spare ribs at the house? Remember?"
The Mint, Las Vegas, Nevada
"Christ, Maria, why didn’t you say something, I got a good friend, house doctor at the Mint."
Beverly Hills, California
"The keys were in his Ferrari and she took it, hesitating when she came out to the main canyon road, turning then not toward Beverly Hills but toward the Valley, and the freeway."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"It was dawn before she reached Vegas and, because she stopped in Vegas to buy cigarettes, eight o’clock before she reached Tonopah."
Tonopah, Nevada
"It was dawn before she reached Vegas and, because she stopped in Vegas to buy cigarettes, eight o’clock before she reached Tonopah. She was not sure what she had meant to do in Tonopah."
California, United States
"In any case she was stopped for speeding outside Tonopah and when the highway patrolman saw the silver dress and the bare feet and the Ferrari registered to someone else, he checked California to see if the car had been reported stolen, and it had."
Malibu, California
"Freddy had driven out to the Malibu ranch where the actor was shooting a Western and had told the actor whom to call to retract the complaint."
Nevada, United States
"Freddy had gotten in touch with one of the big savings-and-loan Democrats, who got in touch with someone in Nevada and the marijuana came off the report."
Nevada, United States
"Nothing at all off about leaving a party with Johnny Waters and ending up in jail in Nevada at eight o’clock the next morning."
Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, United States
"You know that employment agency on Beverly? The one where you got the Guatemalan who stole your diaphragm?"
Baker, California, United States
"When that failed she imagined herself driving, conceived audacious lane changes, strategic shifts of gear, the Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world."
Sands Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
"“You here all alone?” the bellboy in the Sands asked, lingering after she had tipped him."
Texas, United States
"Radio Station Employees traveling out of Texas with wives and children and embezzled cash and Schemes for Getting Money and Never Delivering on Piecework, an inchoate army on the move."
Sands, Las Vegas, Nevada
"She was trying to eat an egg roll in the Sands and the two men and the girl had been watching her ever since she sat down."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"For the rest of the time Maria was in Las Vegas she wore dark glasses. She did not decide to stay in Vegas: she only failed to leave."
Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas, Nevada
"Two or three times a day she walked in and out of all the hotels on the Strip and several downtown."
Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada
"“Just how long have you been here now,” Freddy Chaikin asked when she ran into him in Caesar’s. “You planning on making a year of it? Or what?”"
Fremont Street, Las Vegas, Nevada
"A child in the harsh light of a crosswalk on the Strip. A sign on Fremont Street. A light blinking."
Hoover Dam, Nevada
"She began to feel the pressure of Hoover Dam, there on the desert, began to feel the pressure and pull of the water. When the pressure got great enough she drove out there."
Thunderbird, Las Vegas, Nevada
"she imagined that she could be put blindfolded in front of the signs at the Thunderbird and the Flamingo and know which was which."
Flamingo, Las Vegas, Nevada
"she imagined that she could be put blindfolded in front of the signs at the Thunderbird and the Flamingo and know which was which."
Los Angeles, California
"Early in the morning she called Freddy Chaikin from Los Angeles and asked him to pay her bill and bring back her clothes."
Peru, South America
"I mean it. Take me somewhere." "You got a map of Peru?"
Death Valley, California, United States
"The town was on a dry river bed between Death Valley and the Nevada line."
Nevada, United States
"The town was on a dry river bed between Death Valley and the Nevada line."
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
"When that failed she imagined herself driving, conceived audacious lane changes, strategic shifts of gear, the Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"From a pay phone on the highway outside Las Vegas she called the number Benny Austin had given her."
San Bernardino, California
"When that failed she imagined herself driving, conceived audacious lane changes, strategic shifts of gear, the Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world."
Barstow, California
"When that failed she imagined herself driving, conceived audacious lane changes, strategic shifts of gear, the Hollywood to the San Bernardino and straight on out, past Barstow, past Baker, driving straight on into the hard white empty core of the world."
Silver Wells, California
"There was something about seeing her mother’s and father’s graves, but her mother and father were not buried in Tonopah. They were buried in Silver Wells, or what had been Silver Wells."
Nevada, United States
"Maria thinks we’re going to get arrested for possession. Maria thinks she’s already done that number in Nevada."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"I said we’d meet them in Vegas. Helene’s there already."
Riviera, Las Vegas, Nevada
"Let’s not have dinner at the Riviera again. Harrison likes the Riviera."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"They had been on the desert three weeks when Susannah Wood got beaten up in a hotel room in Las Vegas."
Barstow, California
"Found himself a girl down to Barstow. I told you. Doreen Baker."
Barstow, California
"I made my decision in ’61 at a meeting in Barstow and I never shed one tear since."
Los Angeles County, California
"In that way I resemble the only man in Los Angeles County who does clean work."
Silver Wells, California
"An underground nuclear device was detonated where Silver Wells had once been, and Maria got up before dawn to feel the blast."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"I thought you’d be in Vegas," BZ said when Maria opened the door."
Sacramento, California
"Born in Sacramento, California, she lives in New York City."
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
"Miami Democracy Salvador The White Album A Book Of Common Prayer"
Maiden Lane, New York
"This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. 180 Maiden Lane New York, NY 10038 www.openroadmedia.com"
Miami, Florida
"After Henry Miami Democracy Salvador The White Album"
Las Vegas, Nevada
"BZ stood up. “You go into Vegas.”"
Silver Wells, California
"“Actually I grew up in Silver Wells.” The boy looked at her impassively. “It’s across the line. I mean it’s on the test range.”"
New York, New York
"Carter had simply followed Maria around New York and shot film."
New York, New York
"Born in Sacramento, California, she lives in New York City."
New York, New York
"Les Goodwin in New York"
New York, New York
"“When Les Goodwin called from New York the next morning at seven o’clock she began to cry again.”"
New York, New York
"Sometimes the contact was Freddy Chaikin, sometimes an F.B.I. man she had met once in New York and not thought of since."
New York, New York
"‘There’s some principle I’m not grasping, Maria,” Carter said on the telephone from New York."
New York, New York
"Just that. Carter called from New York and told BZ."
New York, New York
"Carter was driving too fast because he had to meet Freddy Chaikin and a writer from New York at Chasen’s at seven o’clock."
New York, New York
"For almost two hours she studied an old issue of Vogue she picked up in the poolhouse, her attention fixed particularly on the details of the life led in New York and Rome by the wife of an Italian industrialist."
Los Angeles, California
"“Dear Maria,” the note read. “Well don’t know when I’ll get over to LA but wanted to give you a telephone where you can call if you are in Nevada again or need help."
London, England
"After Cannes he seemed to be in London, and after that in Paris again, where he appeared on television discussing the auteur principle."
Las Vegas, Nevada
"Susannah Wood lay down on Maria’s bed. “Let’s go into Vegas.” “It’s all planned.”"
Vermont, United States
"Normandie ¼ Vermont ¾ Harbor Fwy 1. Again and again she returned to an intricate stretch just south of the interchange where successful passage from the Hollywood onto the Harbor required a diagonal move across four lanes of traffic."