Geoff Schumacher tries hard to quash the popular and racy mythology of Las Vegas in his book, "Sun, Sin & Suburbia," and to a point he succeeds. After reading his book, you walk away convinced that Las Vegas owes as much to circumstance and droll city planners as it does to its sexier patrons, the Mafiosi. Unfortunately, you also walk away feeling had, as though old pal Vegas is really more monotonous suburb than seedy, sun-drenched metropolis.
Schumacher may have his facts straight, but certainly he doesn't have them in order, and that's an immediate problem. He lacks a consistent narrative, the chapters being divided up by theme rather than chronology. I have nothing against organizing history into themes, per se, but plenty of compelling and deeply researched histories have managed to depict events in the order they unfolded (go figure). Instead, Schumacher has loosely assembled a mass of barren facts and vomited them on the reader's doorstep. The result is a clunky, slipshod piecing-together of factoids that reads like a clunky, slipshod piecing-together of factoids.
The real story of Vegas never gets told here. Schumacher hints at a lot of books that have some very interesting, if not entirely accurate, depictions of the city's origins. He refers to them really by way of clarifying his oh-so-very diplomatic middle position. "Yes, mobsters played a role in the making of Vegas. Yes, the casinos are an important part of the Vegas economy. But a lot of smart city leaders and developers were important, too. Haven't you visited the suburbs?" he seems to be saying.
I admire Schumacher's gumption in telling us everything we probably never wanted to know about Vegas, but while he does everything in his power to pull your eyes from the glitz and glamour--like a parent trying to steal his child's attention away from the boob tube--what you really want to do is look over there, where the action is. You want to wander away from this tour of the bland and the banal, in which you hear the guide saying, "Over here is where there used to be a K-Mart. There was no road here 50 years ago." (There was no road anywhere if you go back far enough.) "That didn't work out so well," he continues. "Now they're putting up a Wal-Mart, they've expanded the strip mall to include a walkway and a beautiful fountain, and they've installed some statues."
No, none of these are direct quotes from the book. But this is:
"In the late '90s, the intersection of Craig Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard became the northern valley's retail center, home to two major discount retailers (Wal-Mart and Target), three supermarkets (Albertson's, Vons and Wal-Mart), a home-improvement store (Home Depot), an office supply store (Office Max), drugstores (Rite-Aid, Sav-On) and a range of restaurants (Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse), shops and banks."
Wait, there's more:
"The corner also has the only Starbucks coffee shop within a several-mile radius."
So much for the wedding chapels and the prostitutes (which, to be fair, he does mention). And I haven't even started on the long, glowing reviews of the Irvine-esque master-planned communities, which read more like travel brochures than works of historical non-fiction. Come on, Schumacher, you're not here to sell me a house in Summerlin, are you?
Despite all his insistence on downplaying the sexier aspects of Vegas history, Schumacher is forced to admit that Sin City was built on and will continue to depend on gambling, not just a little, but a lot. He practically mutters it under his breath, begrudgingly: "Downtown is unlikely to survive in any desirable form without the casinos serving as the primary economic engine," he writes at one point. In the introduction, he writes that "Las Vegas is still the only major city that depends almost entirely on gambling for its livelihood. Gambling, along with the accompanying attractions, remains the linchpin of the economy."
His major motivation, presumably, is to show that the natural evolution of the city's recreational entertainment industry owes as much to demographics and pop culture trends as it does to the big movers and shakers now immortalized in films like "Casino." I can accept that. City planners and casino developers will have to keep outdoing themselves in this city that only lives by constantly reinventing itself to please the consumer. Yet he fails to convince me, in any case, that the real history of Vegas isn't the history of the casino industry, after all, or that it wouldn't be what it is today without all its lively and sinister and mad characters dragging the city with them or being swept away themselves.
Ironically, the most compelling parts of Schumacher's book are its quirky tales about those very same people, who came to the table to play their hands at the card game of creation--Howard Hughes, Steve Wynn, Bugsy Siegel, William Bennett, Hank Greenspun, Meyer Lansky--some who won, some who lost, but all who became part of history (unless you intentionally write them out). That's right, history, not a laundry list of street corners, strip malls and neighborhoods. I don't mind reading about a neighborhood if you have really captured its essence, but that probably means spinning a good yarn. In making his point, Schumacher neuters Las Vegas.
In comparison, read "The Devil's Highway" and see how author Luis Alberto Urrea brings a scruffy patch of desert to life. The place as he describes it inhales life and exhales ghost stories, as you'll notice every place does if you listen close. Schumacher simply tunes out the human whisper in favor of mechanical facts. His neighborhoods have no souls. They are simply lists. But where Urrea, blessed like Geppetto, took a pair of shoes or a belt buckle and magically transformed them into living, breathing characters, Schumacher throws his facts into the wood chipper, murdering Vegas in the process.
Instead, Schumacher only hints at the vigor and human drama that went into building the gambling Mecca of the United States. He hints at it and then says, "Oh, but you don't want to hear about that." Yes I do, thank you very much! Perhaps the paper trail of new buildings and city zones will be interesting to some, but I think it safe to assume that most people would rather get to know the life of the city, and the lives of those who helped to build it.
Maybe the history of Vegas is the history of an adult Disneyland in the making, but Schumacher doesn't even manage to get that across. "Sun, Sin & Suburbia" succeeds neither as comprehensive overview nor as compelling human history. So, why then should anyone bother to read it? Better to stick to the many enticing works mentioned in the appendix, which may be the most useful part of the entire book.
Schumacher may have his facts straight, but certainly he doesn't have them in order, and that's an immediate problem. He lacks a consistent narrative, the chapters being divided up by theme rather than chronology. I have nothing against organizing history into themes, per se, but plenty of compelling and deeply researched histories have managed to depict events in the order they unfolded (go figure). Instead, Schumacher has loosely assembled a mass of barren facts and vomited them on the reader's doorstep. The result is a clunky, slipshod piecing-together of factoids that reads like a clunky, slipshod piecing-together of factoids.
The real story of Vegas never gets told here. Schumacher hints at a lot of books that have some very interesting, if not entirely accurate, depictions of the city's origins. He refers to them really by way of clarifying his oh-so-very diplomatic middle position. "Yes, mobsters played a role in the making of Vegas. Yes, the casinos are an important part of the Vegas economy. But a lot of smart city leaders and developers were important, too. Haven't you visited the suburbs?" he seems to be saying.
I admire Schumacher's gumption in telling us everything we probably never wanted to know about Vegas, but while he does everything in his power to pull your eyes from the glitz and glamour--like a parent trying to steal his child's attention away from the boob tube--what you really want to do is look over there, where the action is. You want to wander away from this tour of the bland and the banal, in which you hear the guide saying, "Over here is where there used to be a K-Mart. There was no road here 50 years ago." (There was no road anywhere if you go back far enough.) "That didn't work out so well," he continues. "Now they're putting up a Wal-Mart, they've expanded the strip mall to include a walkway and a beautiful fountain, and they've installed some statues."
No, none of these are direct quotes from the book. But this is:
"In the late '90s, the intersection of Craig Road and Martin Luther King Boulevard became the northern valley's retail center, home to two major discount retailers (Wal-Mart and Target), three supermarkets (Albertson's, Vons and Wal-Mart), a home-improvement store (Home Depot), an office supply store (Office Max), drugstores (Rite-Aid, Sav-On) and a range of restaurants (Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse), shops and banks."
Wait, there's more:
"The corner also has the only Starbucks coffee shop within a several-mile radius."
So much for the wedding chapels and the prostitutes (which, to be fair, he does mention). And I haven't even started on the long, glowing reviews of the Irvine-esque master-planned communities, which read more like travel brochures than works of historical non-fiction. Come on, Schumacher, you're not here to sell me a house in Summerlin, are you?
Despite all his insistence on downplaying the sexier aspects of Vegas history, Schumacher is forced to admit that Sin City was built on and will continue to depend on gambling, not just a little, but a lot. He practically mutters it under his breath, begrudgingly: "Downtown is unlikely to survive in any desirable form without the casinos serving as the primary economic engine," he writes at one point. In the introduction, he writes that "Las Vegas is still the only major city that depends almost entirely on gambling for its livelihood. Gambling, along with the accompanying attractions, remains the linchpin of the economy."
His major motivation, presumably, is to show that the natural evolution of the city's recreational entertainment industry owes as much to demographics and pop culture trends as it does to the big movers and shakers now immortalized in films like "Casino." I can accept that. City planners and casino developers will have to keep outdoing themselves in this city that only lives by constantly reinventing itself to please the consumer. Yet he fails to convince me, in any case, that the real history of Vegas isn't the history of the casino industry, after all, or that it wouldn't be what it is today without all its lively and sinister and mad characters dragging the city with them or being swept away themselves.
Ironically, the most compelling parts of Schumacher's book are its quirky tales about those very same people, who came to the table to play their hands at the card game of creation--Howard Hughes, Steve Wynn, Bugsy Siegel, William Bennett, Hank Greenspun, Meyer Lansky--some who won, some who lost, but all who became part of history (unless you intentionally write them out). That's right, history, not a laundry list of street corners, strip malls and neighborhoods. I don't mind reading about a neighborhood if you have really captured its essence, but that probably means spinning a good yarn. In making his point, Schumacher neuters Las Vegas.
In comparison, read "The Devil's Highway" and see how author Luis Alberto Urrea brings a scruffy patch of desert to life. The place as he describes it inhales life and exhales ghost stories, as you'll notice every place does if you listen close. Schumacher simply tunes out the human whisper in favor of mechanical facts. His neighborhoods have no souls. They are simply lists. But where Urrea, blessed like Geppetto, took a pair of shoes or a belt buckle and magically transformed them into living, breathing characters, Schumacher throws his facts into the wood chipper, murdering Vegas in the process.
Instead, Schumacher only hints at the vigor and human drama that went into building the gambling Mecca of the United States. He hints at it and then says, "Oh, but you don't want to hear about that." Yes I do, thank you very much! Perhaps the paper trail of new buildings and city zones will be interesting to some, but I think it safe to assume that most people would rather get to know the life of the city, and the lives of those who helped to build it.
Maybe the history of Vegas is the history of an adult Disneyland in the making, but Schumacher doesn't even manage to get that across. "Sun, Sin & Suburbia" succeeds neither as comprehensive overview nor as compelling human history. So, why then should anyone bother to read it? Better to stick to the many enticing works mentioned in the appendix, which may be the most useful part of the entire book.
Slumberland...well put!