Monday, June 1, 2015

VEGAS- John Gregory Dunne






































"In the summer of my nervous breakdown, I went to live in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada."

So begins this journalistic, autobiographical novel, memoir, work of fiction.  It recounts a summer where the author moves to Las Vegas to re-evaluate.

There he befriends a $10,000  a week stand up comic, a prostitute and a private investigator. Interspersed with his meetings, evenings and days with these three, there are autobiographical reminiscences.

He acts a a pseudo pimp for the hooker, taking her into casinos past security so she can work, gives a breakdown on how the P.I works using a web of contacts throughout the gambling industry, and listens to the comic how he has come up through the ranks working in 'mob' controlled clubs on the east coast

The scenarios are dated, this was published in 1974, but what never dates is Dunne's sparkling, punchy dialogue, he doesn't waste words.  This is interesting, not a "True Confessions" which is Dunne's masterpiece but an interesting slice of time and life.



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