1. The titular phrase "play it as it lays" is taken from the lingo of craps. (Golfers say it too, but the difference is important.)
2. Play It As It Lays was included in Time Magazine's list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present."
3. Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne wrote the screenplay for a 1972 screen adaptation starring Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins. The film was underrated and mostly forgotten--but here's a recent reassessment that begins to do it justice. It's not available on DVD, but occasionally shows up on the Sundance Channel.
4. Personal observation: The word "nihilism" is persistently included in commentary about Play It--presumably based on Maria's use of the word "nothing." I don't think that's the correct interpretation, though. Maybe Maria's "nothing" is not precisely Zen-like, but maybe it is closer to enlightenment than to despair.
5. Maria's answer to every question on her psychological evaluation is "nothing applies." That doesn't really seem crazy . . .
