Fantasy..
Quasi-miraculous if you think of the artesian springs that gush up in the middle of the desert, utopian for the Mormons who believed they could found a colony here and live off their crops, Las Vegas became a fantasy of a city where anything goes. As it is said that business and freedom are not irreconcilable here, it comes as no surprise to discover that the first of its authors, Luther B. Scherer (1879-1957) wore two hats: businessman in civilian life and poet in private life. He contributed to the city's financial health by investing in hotels and casinos, and to its spiritual life by publishing his verses in magazines and collections(Reminiscing in Rhyme). As a result, he was named Nevada's Poet Laureate in 1950... though it's not clear to which side of his personality the street that still bears his name pays homage.
A full decade later, Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005), the undisputed master of the "Gonzo" - that particular genre of journalism pioneered by Bill Cardoso, in which the narrator never refrains from using the "I" or sharing his subjective impressions - published Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: a Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. This title - which became Las Vegas Parano in translation (Gallimard) - has been an essential classic since 1972, and was adapted for the screen by Terry Gillian in 1998. In addition to offering an intimate, over-the-top vision of the city - Thompson never concealed his penchant for narcotics - this book paved the way for authors who would enjoy using Las Vegas as the setting for their most extreme novels. We might think of Stephen King's novel The Scourge - first published in 1978 in an expurgated version, then in 1990 in its entirety - where, after an epidemic that decimated 99.40% of the world's population, the forces of evil, armed with a nuclear bomb, make Vegas their headquarters. However, between reportage and fiction, a third alternative emerges, that of autobiography - more or less romanticized, more or less painful - which authors born in or who have lived in Las Vegas have taken up.
...and reality
Untranslated into French, Phyllis Barber offers a delightful description of her youth in How I Got Cultured: A Nevada Memoir. Born into a Mormon family but raised in Las Vegas, she found herself caught between a rigid faith and the attractions of the big world. By dint of negotiation, she eventually managed to emancipate herself, as she explains in this 1991 text, which won the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Award... and the Association for Mormon Letters Award. Having begun writing as part of a workshop, she is now pursuing her career as an author of nonfiction(Raw Edges in 2009, To the Mountains in 2014) and fiction(The Desert Between Us in 2020). More tragic is the fate of John O'Brien, which ended with his suicide in 1994 at the age of 34. During his lifetime, only one book - Leaving Las Vegas - was completed and published by Rivages, who described the encounter between an alcoholic and a prostitute as a "romantic but ruthless love story". Some, like John O'Brien's father, saw in this work, if not a confession, at least a testament. Indeed, it was a fortnight after learning that his novel was to be adapted into a film that he decided to take his own life, seemingly unable to bear seeing the demons of his literary double brought to the screen. His near namesake, Matthew O'Brien, knows the city well, having lived here for a decade in the early 2000s. Editor-in-chief of Las Vegas CityLife, he devoted two years to a report(Beneath the Neon, now Sous les néons : vie et mort dans les souterrains de Las Vegas, published by Inculte in 2012 but unfortunately out of print) devoted to a very special population: the disinherited and other ruined gamblers who have no choice but to haunt the city's 8,000 km network of sewers. An important work that has prompted television investigations and reveals, like no other, the other side of the American dream, an "anti-fantasy" that Charles Bock has also delved into. In Beautiful Children (Les Enfants de Las Vegas, Points editions), a native of the city, he brings together characters who epitomize this marginality: Newell Ewing, a runaway child, a young junkie with a shaved head, Cheri Blossom, a stripper who dreams of glory, and her punk boyfriend, Ponyboy... Their lives intersect in a novel that made the New York Times 100 list of must-read books in 2008.
Also born in Las Vegas, in 1972 and 1980 respectively, Vicki Petterson and Lindsey Taylor Leavitt have also discovered each other in our language. The former with the thriller Survivre available from Sonatine (her fantasy trilogy, L'Étreinte du zodiaque, set in Las Vegas, is out of print with Panini Books), the latter in a completely different genre with two volumes of the adventures of Olivia and Pipper published by La Martinière jeunesse(Un journal pour deux: Au secours, le collège! and Sous les projecteurs). The new generation has no qualms about exploring other territories and moving away from the documentary aspect that served as a common thread for previous writers. Marcus Amaker, a member of the Academy of American Poets, excels orally - he has performed on the most prestigious stages, from the Washington Opera to the Portland Opera - and in writing, he has published eight collections that have propelled him to the rank of South Carolina's first poet laureate, since he decided to leave his hometown. Manila-born Kenneth Kit Lamug works as a filmmaker, illustrator and photographer. In addition to the success of his street portraits, he achieved fame with A Box Story, a children's book that was awarded the Literary Classic Book Awards in 2012. To say that culture has no place in Las Vegas would therefore be a misnomer; on the contrary, every year since 2012, the Nevada Humanities association has published an anthology of texts dedicated to the city presented on the occasion of the annual Book Fair created in 2002. In 2017, this counted 800 speakers and 10,000 participants. What's more, a real community has sprung up around literature, readily gathering in one of Las Vegas' thirty libraries or at the prestigious Black Moutain Foundation, the beating heart that houses local publishers. A patron of the arts in the form of grants and writing residencies, this institute is also proud to perpetuate the city's tradition of hospitality by welcoming and funding writers who have been persecuted in their home countries.
