If this bored, cynical story were at least exciting, it would still be hard to endure Didion's arch, pretentious prose. Style appears to be all, that is, if two-word paragraphs, repetitions and an irritating habit of dramatic authorial asides such as "the persona of `the writer' does not attract me", constitute style. The plot revolves upon Elena, an out-of-work reporter who agrees to escort a shipment of anti-personnel mines to an unnamed Caribbean island in place of her now dead father. Estranged from her husband and almost as alienated from her daughter, Elena, clad in an all-purpose black silk shift, may be ill, is of a certain age and has no man in her life. The humourless Didion, who sees herself as a prophet and/or philosopher, is so cynical about language, never mind fiction, that one wonders why she bothered to pen this chaotic ramble.
