A history, a panorama and a reverie on the great, "empty" but very lively state of Nevada. It is a book based on travels; but it is a book about people and society, absurd hope and unshakeable dread. For Nevada represents the best and the worst, the frontier paradise and the future abyss. It is a book about landscape, and enormous, desolate views; the silence of the places where nothing happens, and the sudden, total roar of a military plane flying at 50 feet and 2000mph. It describes the various shades of ochre and mauve; the astonishing extremes of weather; the religion of water; and the blur of red and black on the roulette wheel. Nevada is a meeting place for the oldest mummified remains ever found in North America - and Jerry Lewis. It extends from cowboys on the last great ranches to lone prospectors, from the desperately hopeful in Las Vegas, to the resolute military men, from the exponents of fringe movements of the Mormon church, to the people who live on Route 50, the loneliest road in the world.
- ISBN10 034911272X
- ISBN13 9780349112725
- Publish Date 6 September 2001 (first published 28 September 1999)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 31 December 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Abacus
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 432
- Language English