A Book of Common Prayer, Joan Didion (Simon and Schuster, 1977) ****

This brief novel of just over two-hundred pages tells the story of two American women living in the fictional Central American nation of Boca Grande, a town that has been all but abandoned by the world-at-large. Grace Strasser-Mendana controls much of the country's wealth and knows its politicians and its secrets; Charlotte Douglas is an innocent abroad. She has moved to Boca Grande because she feels that it is here, in a nation forever festering with political unrest, that she might eventually be reunited with her daughter, a fugitive radical.

Grace Strasser-Mendana realizes that the nation is on the brink of another violent political upheaval. Charlotte ignores the increasing violence and the messy breakdown of the infrastructure which foretell this disaster. Worse, she ignores the danger to herself as an American with connections (through her daughter) to the radical left. The more Grace tries to get Charlotte to leave the country, the more Charlotte becomes involved in activities associated with the upheaval.

There are affairs and interrogations and intrigue; there is violence and cruelty and killing. These two women, one in control and one almost clueless, do what they feel they must do in order to survive the chaos and carnage of the revolution which is closing in on them. The woman who survives brings a poignant closure to the life of the woman who does not.

It’s a quick read but the not easy to forget.