''A Book of Common Prayer'' is a 1977 novel by
Joan Didion
Joan Didion (; December 5, 1934 – December 23, 2021) was an American writer. Along with Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese, she is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Didion's career began in the 1950s after she won ...
. A limited signed edition of this book was issued by
Franklin library.
Themes
The novel is a story of both personal and political tragedy in the fictional
Central American
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Cen ...
country of "Boca Grande". In 1983 Didion published ''
Salvador'', a book of essays on corruption and violence in
El Salvador; the fiction and non-fiction reflect a similar perspective of rage and despair.
Plot introduction
The novel is narrated by Grace Strasser-Mendana, an American expatriate who married into one of the three or four families that dominate Boca Grande politics, the Mendanas. Grace was trained as an anthropologist under
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (, ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social An ...
, and later took up the amateur study of
biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
, both attempts to find clear-cut, scientific answers to the mysteries of human behavior. Both attempts fail: Grace remains uncomprehending and cut off from the people around her, and in the final line of the novel she admits, "I have not been the witness I wanted to be."
But Grace is not the novel's central character. That is Charlotte Douglas, another American woman sojourning in Boca Grande, although her family ties are elsewhere. Charlotte's beloved daughter Marin has run off with a group of
Marxist radicals and taken part in an absurd act of terrorism, and in the wake of her daughter's disappearance, Charlotte's marriage to a crusading Berkeley lawyer (not Marin's father), has fallen apart.
References
External links
Book page on Joan Didion website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Book of Common Prayer, A
1977 American novels
Novels by Joan Didion
Novels set in Central America