5 Must Read Books About Las Vegas — Joan Didion, Play it as it lays
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From Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing to Stephen King's The Stand, discover the best books set in Vegas that capture the city's dark allure and history.
Published · 1 min read
4. Joan Didion, Play it as it lays
Represents an unrelenting examination of life in 1960s America, the ennui and emptiness of lost dreams, and a society in crisis. The novel itself floats on a kind of middle-ground, between ethical extremes, in the vast, barren spaces of the Mojave Desert, linking Las Vegas and Hollywood. It has been quoted as a combination of The Great Gatsby (by F. Scott Fitzgerald) and Less Than Zero (by Bret Easton Ellis). Intense and exciting, depicting a quiet emptiness and loss of hope: "I was raised to believe that what came in on the next roll would always be better than what went out on the last. I no longer believe that."
