In Nevada : the land, the people, God, and chance / David Thomson ; original photographs by Lucy Gray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thomson, David, 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Manners and customs.

Nevada--Description and travel.

Nevada.

Nevada--History.

History.

Nevada--Social life and customs.

Thomson, David, 1941---Travel--Nevada.

Thomson, David.

Thomson, David, 1941-.

Travel.

Physical Description:

xiii, 330 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : A.A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 1999.

Summary:

Part contemplation of an America both austere and flamboyant, part love letter to the Old West, part idiosyncratic travel guide, David Thomson's In Nevada has the unorthodox brilliance we have come to expect from this acclaimed novelist and chronicler of the film world (in his A Biographical Dictionary of Film and his lives of Orson Welles and David O. Selznick).

At once examining and experiencing Nevada, Thomson finds its people, its landscape, and the unexpected questions it inspires equally provocative. He shows us the historical Nevada--a classic Wild West, attracting Spanish missionaries, Mormons, uprooted Native Americans, explorers, and silver miners--and the contemporary influx of cultists, druggies, survivalists, and fortune hunters whose quests lead directly to the gaming table.

In Nevada is a revelation of the gambler's mix of hope and anxiety, of the isolation and closeness, the beauty and banality, the fact and fancy, at the heart of the state--and the state of mind--of Nevada.

Contents:

Prospects: Travels in the remote and northern parts of the state that also uncover the history of Nevada 1

Suspects: Historic developments in southern Nevada

at Las Vegas and the Test Site

with reflections on degrees of gambling 157

Collects: Prayers for Nevada, its present and future 275.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [309]-314) and index.

ISBN:

0679454861

OCLC:

41299196