A ruthless and unflinching examination of American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking. One thing in my defence, not that it matters: I know what 'e~nothing'e(tm) means, and keep on playing Somewhere out beyond Hollywood, hollowed-out actress Maria Wyeth'e(tm)s life plays out in a numbing routine of perpetual freeway driving. In her early thirties, divorced from her husband, dislocated from friends, anesthetized to pain and pleasure, Wheth is a woman who has run out of both desires and motives 'e" the epitome of a generation made ill by too much freedom. More than five decades after its original publication, Play it as it Lays remains a profoundly disturbing novel that ruthlessly dissects American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The White Album and The Year of Magical Thinking.