{"product_id":"vegas-a-memoir-of-a-dark-season-9781961341326","title":"Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"The best book about Sin City ever written . . . [Dunne's] grotesqueries aren't drug-induced, they're very real. His is the genuine Vegas.\" (\u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In the summer of my nervous breakdown, I went to live in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada.\" So begins John Gregory Dunne's neglected classic of first-person writing, a mordant, deadpan, grotesque tale that blurs the line between autobiography and fiction, confession and reportage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003ePanicked by his own mortality, despondent over his many failings as a writer and a man, Dunne leaves his wife and their three-year old child for the solitude of a crummy apartment off the Vegas Strip. There he plans to write an account of the city as he finds it; the book he ends up writing is \"a fiction which recalls time both real and imagined.\" The remarkable central characters are Artha, a student at cosmetology college by day, a sex worker by night; Buster Mano, a private detective whose specialty is tracking down errant husbands; and Jackie Kasey, a lounge comic who opens for Elvis at $10,000 a night and wonders why he is still only a \"semi-name.\" Pimps, bail bondsmen, parking-lot moguls, used-car tycoons, ex-jockeys, and women who look as if they had \"spent a lifetime meeting guys in Vegas or Miami Beach or Louisville for the Derby\" these are the people who wander through the lives of Artha, Buster, and Jackie--and, for a dark season, the life of the narrator.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eJohn Gregory Dunne captures a low point in American culture and in one American life with rare vitality, honesty, and perception. Sad, powerful, wildly funny, \u003ci\u003eVegas\u003c\/i\u003e is like no memoir before or since.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDanler, Stephanie:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eStephanie Danler\u003c\/b\u003e is a novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eStray\u003c\/i\u003e and the international bestseller \u003ci\u003eSweetbitter\u003c\/i\u003e. She is the creator and executive producer of the \u003ci\u003eSweetbitter\u003c\/i\u003e television series on Starz.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDunne, John Gregory:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Gregory Dunne\u003c\/b\u003e (1932-2003) was a journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and memoirist. His books include five novels, seven works of narrative nonfiction, and a posthumous collection of essays. He and his wife, Joan Didion, collaborated on many screenplays, including \u003ci\u003eThe Panic in Needle Park\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePlay It As It Lays\u003c\/i\u003e, the Barbra Streisand version of \u003ci\u003eA Star is Born\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eTrue Confessions\u003c\/i\u003e. Two of his books, \u003ci\u003eThe Studio\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMonster: Living Off the Big Screen\u003c\/i\u003e, are about working in the movie business.\u003c\/p\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"McNally Editions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51475413893394,"sku":"9781961341326","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_76e41ded-6903-4136-9024-008d5f33fb99.jpg?v=1752594829","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/vegas-a-memoir-of-a-dark-season-9781961341326","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}