Episode 24: Speeding Down the Highway with PLAY IT AS IT LAYS by Joan Didion Artwork

Great American Novel

Few literary terms are more hotly debated, discounted, or derided than the "Great American Novel." But while critics routinely dismiss the phrase as at best hype and as at worst exclusionary, the belief that a national literature commensurate with both the scope and the contradictions of being American persists. In this podcast Scott Yarbrough and Kirk Curnutt examine totemic works such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick and Toni Morrison's Beloved that have been labeled GANs, exploring their themes, forms, and reception histories, asking why, when, and how they entered the literary canon. Readers beware: there be spoilers here, and other hijinks ensue...

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Great American Novel

Episode 24: Speeding Down the Highway with PLAY IT AS IT LAYS by Joan Didion

November 03, 2023 • Scott Yarbrough and Kirk Curnutt • Season 3 • Episode 24

Great American Novel Podcast 24 considers Joan Didion’s 1970 novel Play It as It Lays, which shut the door on the 60s and sped down the freeway into the 70s, eyes on the rearview mirror all the while. In a wide-ranging discussion which touches not only upon Didion and her screenwriter husband but also John Wayne, Ernest Hemingway, the Manson cult, the Mamas and the Papas and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, we drive down the interstate with Didion and her Corvette as we consider Hollywood, Las Vegas, the desert, Hippies and Hipsters, and the legacy of the 1960s. As always, listeners are warned, there be spoilers here.

The Great American Novel podcast is an ongoing discussion about the novels we hold up as significant achievements in our American literary culture. Additionally, we sometimes suggest novels who should break into the sometimes problematical canon and at other times we’ll suggest books which can be dropped from such lofty consideration. Your hosts are Kirk Curnutt and Scott Yarbrough, professors with little time and less sense who nonetheless enjoy a good book banter. All opinions are their own and do not reflect the points of view of their employers, publishers, relatives, pets, or accountants.

Intro and outro music is by Lobo Loco. The intro song is “Old Ralley,” and the outro is “Inspector Invisible.” For more information visit: https://locolobomusic.com/. Clip from the trailer for the film Play It As It Lays, dir. 1972 by Frank Perry, monologue spoken by Tuesday Weld, written by Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Excerpt from “Rattlesnakes” by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, on the album Rattlesnakes, 1984 Polydor/Geffen, prod. Paul Hardiman.

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