{"product_id":"the-last-thing-he-wanted-paperback","title":"The Last Thing He Wanted - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJoan Didion\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER - \"Didion at her finest\" --\u003ci\u003eUSA Today - \u003c\/i\u003eAn intricate, fast-paced novel about trying to create a context for democracy and getting hands a little dirty in the process, complete with conspiracies, arms dealing, and assassinations. From the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Year of Magical Thinking\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLet Me Tell You What I Mean\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe narrator introduces Elena McMahon, estranged from a life of celebrity fundraisers and from her powerful West Coast husband, Wynn Janklow, whom she has left, taking Catherine, her daughter, to become a reporter for \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e. She finds herself boarding a plane for Florida to see her father. She becomes embroiled in her his business even though \"she had trained herself since childhood not to have any interest in what he was doing.\" It is from this moment that she is caught up in something much larger than she could have imagined. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDidion makes connections among Dallas, Iran-Contra, and Castro, and points out how \"spectral companies with high-concept names tended to interlock.\" As this book builds to its terrifying finish, we see the underpinnings of a dark historical underbelly.\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis intricate, fast-paced story, whose many scenes and details fit together like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, is Didion's incisive and chilling look at a modern world where things are not working as they should and where the oblique and official language is as sinister as the events it is covering up. \u003cbr\u003eThe narrator introduces Elena McMahon, estranged from a life of celebrity fundraisers and from her powerful West Coast husband, Wynn Janklow, whom she has left, taking Catherine, her daughter, to become a reporter for The Washington Post. Suddenly walking off the 1984 campaign, she finds herself boarding a plane for Florida to see her father, Dick McMahon. She becomes embroiled in her Dick's business though \"she had trained herself since childhood not to have any interest in what he was doing.\" It is from this moment that she is caught up in something much larger than she could have imagined, something that includes Ambassador-at-Large Treat Austin Morrison and Alexander Brokaw, the ambassador to an unnamed Caribbean island. \u003cbr\u003eInto this startling vision of conspiracies, arms dealing, and assassinations, Didion makes connections among Dallas, Iran-Contra, and Castro, and points up how \"spectral companies with high-concept names tended to interlock.\" As this book builds to its terrifying finish, we see the underpinnings of a dark historical underbelly. This is our system, the one \"trying to create a context for democracy and getting [its] hands a little dirty in the process.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"From the Hardcover edition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eJOAN DIDION was born in Sacramento in 1934 and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1956. After graduation, Didion moved to New York and began working for \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e, which led to her career as a journalist and writer. Didion published her first novel, \u003ci\u003eRun River\u003c\/i\u003e, in 1963. Didion's other novels include \u003ci\u003eA Book of Common Prayer\u003c\/i\u003e (1977), \u003ci\u003eDemocracy\u003c\/i\u003e (1984), and \u003ci\u003eThe Last Thing He Wanted \u003c\/i\u003e(1996). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Didion's first volume of essays, \u003ci\u003eSlouching Towards Bethlehem\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in 1968, and her second, \u003ci\u003eThe White Album\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in 1979. Her nonfiction works include \u003ci\u003eSalvador\u003c\/i\u003e (1983), \u003ci\u003eMiami\u003c\/i\u003e (1987), \u003ci\u003eAfter Henry\u003c\/i\u003e (1992), \u003ci\u003ePolitical Fictions \u003c\/i\u003e(2001), \u003ci\u003eWhere I Was From \u003c\/i\u003e(2003), \u003ci\u003eWe Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live\u003c\/i\u003e (2006), \u003ci\u003eBlue Nights\u003c\/i\u003e (2011), \u003ci\u003eSouth and West \u003c\/i\u003e(2017) and \u003ci\u003eLet Me Tell You What I Mean \u003c\/i\u003e(2021). Her memoir \u003ci\u003eThe Year of Magical Thinking\u003c\/i\u003e won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In 2005, Didion was awarded the American Academy of Arts \u0026amp; Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters. In 2007, she was awarded the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. A portion of National Book Foundation citation read: \"An incisive observer of American politics and culture for more than forty-five years, Didion's distinctive blend of spare, elegant prose and fierce intelligence has earned her books a place in the canon of American literature as well as the admiration of generations of writers and journalists.\" In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Barack Obama, and the PEN Center USA's Lifetime Achievement Award. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDidion said of her writing: \"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.\" She died in December 2021.\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 240\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.8 x 7.9 x 5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 02, 1997\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47379567575218,"sku":"9780679752851","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0770\/3891\/1666\/files\/3b9c4f0e7c9b8d4eb6c41002f1104870.webp?v=1777766485","url":"https:\/\/box.dadyminds.org\/products\/the-last-thing-he-wanted-paperback","provider":"DADYMINDS BOX","version":"1.0","type":"link"}