Real Las Vegas

Jacket Description/Back: "A team of fifteen reporters led by David Littlejohn, together with prize-winning photojournalist Eric Gran, studied the "real" Las Vegas - the city beyond the Strip and Downtown - for the better part of a year. They talked to teenagers (whose suicide and dropout rates frighten parents), senior citizens (many of whom spend their days playing bingo and the slots), Mexican immigrants (who build the new houses and clean the hotels), homeless people and angry blacks, as well as local police, active Christians, city officials, and prostitutes. They looked into the local churches, the powerful labor unions, pawn shops, the real estate boom, defiant ranchers to the north, and dire predictions that the city is about to run out of water."--BOOK JACKET. "In this close-up investigation of the real lives being led in America's most tourist-jammed, gambling-driven city, readers will discover a Las Vegas very different from the one they may have seen or imagined."--BOOK JACKET. Marc Notes: Transciency, rootlessness, political impotence & social dysfunction -- 15 reporters talk to teenagers, seniors, Mexicans, homeless, blacks, cops... Review Quotes: "In a shattering series of quick-cut profiles and scenes, Littlejohn's team of crack reporters highlight the voices of off-the-beaten-track Las Vegas--homeless denizens of desperate shelters, residents of the soft pogroms of North (Hispanic) and West (African-American) Vegas, the aimless teens, bingo junkies, sex workers, sagebrush rebels, and real estate speculators who live and wither by the almighty buck, and the cops, union organizers and preachers who control or mitigate the consequences of capitalism run amok. A gritty, people-centered montage of our saddest American dream."--PeterNabokov"There's a strong chance that Las Vegas--boisterous, demotic, a figment of its own imagination, the Elvis Presley of American cities--may be the last metropolis to develop from scratch in these United States. David Littlejohn and his reporters have done a brilliant job decoding the complexities ofAmerica's neon-lit post-modern urban enigma. Viva Las Vegas!-- Kevin Starr, State Librarian of California and author of America and the California Dream seriesReview Quotes: "In a shattering series of quick-cut profiles and scenes, Littlejohn's team of crack reporters highlight the voices of off-the-beaten-track Las Vegas--homeless denizens of desperate shelters, residents of the soft pogroms of North (Hispanic) and West (African-American) Vegas, the aimless teens, bingo junkies, sex workers, sagebrush rebels, and real estate speculators who live and wither by the almighty buck, and the cops, union organizers and preachers who control or mitigate the consequences of capitalism run amok. A gritty, people-centered montage of our saddest American dream."--Peter Nabokov "There's a strong chance that Las Vegas--boisterous, demotic, a figment of its own imagination, the Elvis Presley of American cities--may be the last metropolis to develop from scratch in these United States. David Littlejohn and his reporters have done a brilliant job decoding the complexities of America's neon-lit post-modern urban enigma. Viva Las Vegas!-- Kevin Starr, State Librarian of California and author of America and the California Dream series Review Quotes: "In a shattering series of quick-cut profiles and scenes, Littlejohn's team of crack reporters highlight the voices of off-the-beaten-track Las Vegas--homeless denizens of desperate shelters, residents of the soft pogroms of North (Hispanic) and West (African-American) Vegas, the aimless teens, bingo junkies, sex workers, sagebrush rebels, and real estate speculators who live and wither by the almighty buck, and the cops, union organizers and preachers who control or mitigate the consequences of capitalism run amok. A gritty, people-centered montage of our saddest American dream."--Peter Nabokov "There's a strong chance that Las Vegas--boisterous, demotic, a figment of its own imagination, the Elvis Presley of American cities--may be the last metropolis to develop from scratch in these United States. David Littlejohn and his reporters have done a brilliant job decoding the complexities of America's neon-lit post-modern urban enigma. Viva Las Vegas!-- Kevin Starr, State Librarian of California and author of America and the California Dream seriesReview Quotes:"In a shattering series of quick-cut profiles and scenes, Littlejohn's team of crack reporters highlight the voices of off-the-beaten-track Las Vegas--homeless denizens of desperate shelters, residents of the soft pogroms of North (Hispanic) and West (African-American) Vegas, the aimless teens, bingo junkies, sex workers, sagebrush rebels, and real estate speculators who live and wither by the almighty buck, and the cops, union organizers and preachers who control or mitigate the consequences of capitalism run amok. A gritty, people-centered montage of our saddest American dream."--Peter Nabokov"There's a strong chance that Las Vegas--boisterous, demotic, a figment of its own imagination, the Elvis Presley of American cities--may be the last metropolis to develop from scratch in these United States. David Littlejohn and his reporters have done a brilliant job decoding the complexities of America's neon-lit post-modern urban enigma. Viva Las Vegas!-- Kevin Starr, State Librarian of California and author of America and the California Dream seriesBiographical Note: David Littlejohn is Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He has written or edited eleven previous books, and is the West Coast arts correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Kensington, California. Publisher Marketing: What images come to mind when you think of Las Vegas? Mobsters and showgirls, magicians and tigers, multimillion-dollar poker games and prizefights; towering signboards that light up the night in front of ever more spectacular casino hotels. But real people live here, too--over a million today, two million tomorrow. Greater Las Vegas has long been the fastest growing metropolitan area in America. And almost every aspect of its citizens' lives is influenced by the almighty power of the gambling industry. A team of fifteen reporters led by David Littlejohn, together with prize winning photo-journalist Eric Gran, studied the "real" Las Vegas--the city beyond the Strip and Downtown--for the better part of a year. They talked to teenagers (whose suicide and dropout rates frighten parents), senior citizens (many of whom spend their days playing bingo and the slots), Mexican immigrants (who build the new houses and clean the hotels), homeless people and angry blacks, as well as local police, active Christians, city officials, and prostitutes. They looked into the local churches, the powerful labor unions, pawn shops, the real estate boom, defiant ranchers to the north, and dire predictions that the city is about to run out of water. Proud Las Vegans claim that theirs is just a friendly southwestern boomtown--"the finest community I have ever lived in," says Bishop Daniel Walsh, who comes from San Francisco. But their picture of Las Vegas as a vibrant, civic-minded metropolis conflicts with evidence of transiency, rootlessness, political impotence, and social dysfunction. In this close-up investigation of the real lives being led in America's most tourist-jammed, gambling-driven city, readers will discover a Las Vegas very different from the one they may have seen or imagined. Review Citations:

Library Journal 10/15/1999 pg. 90 (EAN 9780195130706, Hardcover)

Publishers Weekly 08/09/1999 pg. 330 (EAN 9780195130706, Hardcover)

Kirkus Reviews 08/01/1999 pg. 1203 (EAN 9780195130706, Hardcover)

Ingram Advance 10/01/1999 pg. 214 (EAN 9780195130706, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:  Littlejohn, David David Littlejohn, who teaches in the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, has been writing opera reviews for over twenty years--first for his "Critic at Large" programs on PBS, then for the "Times" (London), and now for the "Wall Street Journal". Among his books are "Black on White: A Critical Survey of Writing by American Negroes" (1966); "The Andr? Gide Reader" (1971); "Dr. Johnson and Noah Webster: Two Men and Their Dictionaries" (1971); "Architect: The Life and Work of Charles W. Moore" (1984); and two novels, "The Man Who Killed Mick Jagger" (1977) and "Going to California" (1981).