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“... and Diary of a Mad Housewife. They were in the money and the awards, and they were married. Joan Didion’s novel Play It as It Lays (1970) came into view as a project. Rosenfeld didn’t much like the book or its numb heroine, Maria Wyeth, but she realised in any case that she was being dropped – Perry had another beloved in view. ...”

“... writes that ‘during the years-long squabble over which of us lady writers would become the next Joan Didion, no one had tried to claim the title of David Foster Wallace for girls’ – why? The answer is obvious: too sweaty. Wallace perspires freely in the foreground, while Paltrow perches mauve-and-beigely on her stool on a far stage. He is dead and ...”

“... the formula (‘I test myself’ paired with an abstract noun) is repetitive. They bring to mind Joan Didion’s reservations about Franny and Zooey: for Didion, the recondite references Franny keeps dropping – she looks down on ‘all poets except Sappho’, and namechecks Manlius while sipping a martini – were ...”