Book Review: "A Book of Common Prayer" by Joan Didion

Joan Didion was a superpower of literature and culture, her influence was wide and great and she wrote some books that have touched women from every walk of life. Personally, my favourite book by her is The Year of Magical Thinking which is a nonfiction book that she wrote shortly after the death of her husband and it is all about grief and dealing with such a close loved one passing away. It is truly a beautiful book. I normally love Didion's writing but this book entitled A Book of Common Prayer, failed to impress me in a lot of ways. Much of it felt forced, and a lot of the story felt a bit on the surface. I think that Joan Didion's attempts at fiction novels are not as great as her nonfiction. They are not in any way 'bad' books - they are just outshone by books like The White Album, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live and of course, The Year of Magical Thinking. I think that this book is a prime example of how Didion's fiction can come off slightly weaker - fiction was never as interesting as her life and work anyways.

A Book of Common Prayer ties in a couple of ideas surrounding the backdrop of the whole political corruption of El Salvador. First and foremost, there are two characters - one of them is called Grace and the other is called Charlotte. Charlotte is the main character and yet, the novel centres around and is narrated by Grace, which makes it slightly strange when it turns out that Charlotte is the protagonist. This is not a spoiler, this is just something that you notice as the book starts on its way. The whole book is actually Charlotte's journey through the fictional city expressed in the book which is clearly an extended metaphor for the rise of marxism in the countries of Central America.

Apart from that though, the other thing we notice is that both of these women are expats from the USA who have arrived in Boca Grande (the fictional city) for a reason. The reason Grace has is because she has married one of the men from the head families of the city - those who control the politics. Whereas, Charlotte's reason is a bit more vague and basis itself on her finding her daughter who has ran off and her husband's disappointment with her and her disappointment with him - slowly sliding towards a possible divorce.

I'm not going to lie, I did like this book. There was only one big problem for me here: the fact that the narrator is not the main character can throw the reader off a bit, it sounds a bit stalker-ish in some places and often sounds a bit pitiful. The character of Grace is someone who is clever and interesting, she has a great career and education - whereas, Charlotte is the one who is severely less interesting and I think this is the exact reason that Joan Didion would have done something like this. Unfortunately, it didn't really work all that well for me. I prefer my books to have the narrator who is also the main character. It's just a personal preference really.

In conclusion, if you are just starting your Joan Didion journey, then can I recommend The Year of Magical Thinking instead? I think this book is good by context for Didion herself - it only seems good because she uses her earlier tropes in this particular text. Readers familiar with her work would immediately recognise this, but those who are not may struggle.