Book Review: Leaving Las Vegas
Trigger Warning: This piece discusses rape and alcoholism.
‘Leaving Las Vegas’ by John O'Brien is incredibly difficult to put into words, not least because you often find yourself struck with abject horror, complete awe, and gut-wrenching sadness within the space of a mere few paragraphs, whilst simultaneously questioning your own morals and prejudices as well as those of the society you live in. Add in the fact that O'Brien was reportedly somewhat similar to one of the main characters, and that his sister suspected the book might be his suicide note, and you've got a novel oozing with context before you even open it. Reading certain passages though, you feel a small smile forming on your lips, and occasionally, a wry, knowing grin stretching across your face.
The novel is set in what could be described as the ‘seedy underbelly’ of Las Vegas – but to use such a meaningless platitude would be offensive to both the book and its late author. Crafted in a way which entirely avoids well-trodden stereotypes or flimsy clichés, ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ isn’t seedy at all, and makes it very plain that this so-called ‘underbelly’ doesn’t exist. Indeed, the concept of 'the underworld' or 'underbelly' only works for those who are not living within one.
The book forces the reader to live vicariously through its two main characters and accept their realities, not the realities imposed on them. The reader slips alternately between Sera, a seasoned sex worker on the streets of Vegas, and booze-addicted Ben, who flees the limitations of Los Angeles to pursue his quest for total inebriation in a city that can provide the life without limitations he has come to need.
Without disregarding the film version (which I happen to adore, and have watched numerous times), the book is much less about the doomed relationship between a lonely prostitute and a suicidal alcoholic. In fact, whilst in Figgis' film, Sera and Ben meet relatively quickly, the book gives a much more in-depth treatment of each individual character before they meet.
Both resolutely determined to pursue their own paths, and insistent that they will never change, Sera and Ben negotiate a brief life together in a world which wants absolutely nothing to do with them. Sera, as a sex worker, serves an obvious purpose, but beyond that purpose is redundant and preferably invisible to society. Ben, on the other hand, is 'that drunk guy' hurtling from bar to bar, getting progressively more incoherent, offensive, and, ultimately, inconvenient. The character himself admits "He was a star. Now he is a case".
The narrative style is blunt, and in places, raw. Rape scenes are described as they happen, complete with the judgemental comments and looks Sera experiences in the moments which follow. The idea that a woman in her line of work should expect to be brutally attacked is clear.
The book is not really about 'leaving' Las Vegas at all. No one who lives such a life in such a city ever really leaves. Except Ben, of course, whose fate affords him a certain distance from the life he led and the spaces he lived that life within. Much like the book's author, Ben's departure from the world he was part of and so heavily dependent upon gives him a distance only afforded to those whose addiction is far beyond repair.
Written by Amy Watson
Amy is a content manager originally from the UK and now proud to call Hamburg, Germany her new home. She is a passionate lover of cheese, literature, languages, modern art, and enjoys all four with copious amounts of red wine.
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