Didion On Mailer

“Inside Bessie Gilmore's trailer south of the Portland city line, down a four-lane avenue of bars and eateries and discount stores and a gas station with a World War II surplus Boeing bomber fixed above the pumps, there is a sense that Bessie can describe only as a ‘suction-type feeling.’ She fears disintegration. She wonders where the houses in which she once lived have gone, she wonders about her husband being gone, her children gone, the 78 cousins she knew in Provo scattered and gone and maybe in the ground. She wonders if, when Gary goes, they would ‘all descend another step into that pit where they gave up searching for one another.’ She has no sense of ‘how much was her fault, and how much was the fault of the ongoing world that ground along like iron-banded wagon wheels up the prairie grass.’ When I read this, I remembered that the tracks made by the wagon wheels are still visible from the air over Utah, like the footprints made on the moon. This is an absolutely astonishing book.”

Heartbreaking.

Where they gave up searching for one another.

Complete review here.