Leaving Las Vegas

If you have seen the movie "Leaving Las Vegas", forget it ever existed and pick up the book. As with many cinema hits, the book is much, much better than the movie script. Sera is a contented hooker in Las Vegas. She has a nice place of her own, a job, and an independent life filled with a comfortable routine. With a past of degradation and a brutish, deceptive pimp in Los Angeles, Sera realizes her life is now normal and easy. She has long since come to terms with what she is and how she wants to live her life. Ben is an alcoholic who embraces his disease. After living the normal life, even the high life, Ben has figured out what really matters; the here and now. For Ben, the here and now is becoming harder and harder to live inside the boundaries he has chosen. Now unemployed, he has become a clock-watcher, in tune with the timing of alcohol service in the state of California and dreaming of Las Vegas where the serving never stops. Ben does not try to fool himself or anyone else, he knows that his trip to Las Vegas will be his last one. Ben and Sera meet by circumstance, Sera's old pimp arrives and tries to force her back into his lifestyle rather than hers. Ben feels the need for warm company as he falls down his spiral staircase of alcoholism. Both Ben and Sera know the outcome of their desperate relationship, and deal with it in different ways as the spiral becomes nothing more than a pinpoint. Don't look for answers from Ben or Sera, they don't have any. This is a tale of degeneration and not redemption. There is no happy ending, and no real bursts of insight, just the erosion and eventual collapse of flesh that has lost its humanity. The four chapters in the short book (189 pages) alternate between Sera and Ben. Sera's initial chapter I thought to be a tad presumptuous, the author attempting to bring about a dreamy, surrealistic view to his words that did not quite cut the grade with me. But by the following 'Ben' chapter, O'Brien's words and prose begin to make sense, and Ben tightens down what could have developed into a windless ramble of eccentric prose. 'Leaving Las Vegas' is a shockingly realistic portrayal of alcoholism, and the careless ennui that accompanies the blackouts and embarrassments. Charming at times, horrific at others, 'Leaving Las Vegas' is anything but boring or average. Forget the movie, it wasn't worth the celluloid used to make it (plus Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue were completely wrong for the parts of Ben and Sera), but pick up the book and totally immerse yourself in this sad and yet somehow sweet love affair. Enjoy!

En Las Vegas, febril simulacro de la esperanza encarnada en las mesas de juego del azar mercantilizado, un hombre y una mujer se encuentran y viven la historia de amor más generosa e imposible que pueda imaginarse.Si la pasión, porque efímera, borra toda huella de futuro y convierte a los amantes en fugaces inmortales, Sera y Ben saben, como pocos enamorados, que el tiempo ha apostado a banca y el destino se ha acelerado. Él, impasible y apacible, ha llegado a Las Vegas porque quiere morir en ginebra y ésta es la única ciudad de Estados Unidos donde los bares no duermen. Ella, una prostituta callejera independiente, ha logrado escapar de su chulo pero no de los peligros de la profesión. Se aceptan tal como son, como se aceptan las cartas en una partida de póker, aunque la baraja esté marcada. Y desde sus situaciones extremas, perciben lo cotidiano en toda su metafísica nitidez.El fundamento de la libertad infividual, el derecho de disponer del propio cuerpo para la vida o la muerte, rara vez se ha expuesto tan vbien como en esta novela autobiográfica de John O'Brien, donde una ramera y un alcohólico terminal adquieren las dimensiones que creíamos reservadas para Abelardo y Eloísa (Muchnik Editores SA).

The movie gives a lot of attention to the love affair before dashing its viewers against rocks. Here, hugs and kisses are few and far between. O'Brien's book injects its moments of passion and accepting love as brief moments of hope laced with doubt, when the overall tone should be enough to foreshadow its bleak and painfully real conclusion. It is written with the raw journalism of somebody who has seen what's on the bottom of the pool and has resurfaced to call for help. I offer this book five stars instead of, say 4, because it sticks to its guns throughout. It never flinches as it paints portraits of characters so desperately needy that somewhere inside you know they will never make it, with or without each other. This is true of more people than we care to admit. I don't know if I have the stamina or the desire for another reading. But I won't ever forget it.

I read this book years ago, and have never forgotten it. As a non-alcoholic myself, it was an incredible education in how someone stays drunk, from the time he wakes up until the moment he falls asleep dead drunk. O'Brien described, in incredible detail, things I had no idea about, such as how an alcoholic carefully proceeds from bar to bar, and how he hides and "minimizes" what he is drinking to non-drinkers. The only criticism I have about the book is the character of the prostitute. She wasn't as well-drawn, and there was no real explanation or development of the attraction between them. There are probably many lonely hookers and alcoholics in Las Vegas; so what drew these two so close together? But even so, I am sure I will never find a better book revealing the life of a man whose every waking moment revolved around a bottle of booze. Highly recommended.

"Leaving Las Vegas" is a dark tale that is not meant for the timid reader. It is real, it is gritty, it is graphic, it is depressing, and it is beautiful all at the same time. This book seriously deserved more credit than it recieved in its year of release, for it is a beautifully written account of unconditional love and loss in Sin City. Compulsively readable, and shatteringly honest, this is a book that will stay with you because of its frank and gorgeous language.