24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas - Hardcover

Martinez, Andres

3.88

172 ratings by Goodreads

9780756763404: 24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0756763401 ISBN 13: 9780756763404

Publisher: Diane Pub Co, 1999

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In April 1998, Andres Martinez withdrew fifty thousand dollars from the bank - most of the advance he was paid for this book - and boarded a plane to the fastest-growing metropolis in America: Las Vegas. Armed with a wad of traveler's checks, Martinez spent a month within the belly of the beast. 24/7 is the round-the-clock chronicle of his wild ride through America's neon Gomorrah.
We are introduced to the people who work in, pass through, and thrive on Vegas: a minister who shines shoes at a topless joint, a school superintendent who must build a new facility every twenty-eight days, and a water czar who covets her neighbors' share of the Colorado River. Martinez hobnobs with conventioneers, befriends a professional sports gambler who raised six kids while losing eight million dollars, and dines with a retired Israeli "security officer" whose lifelong ambition was to move to Vegas and become a blackjack guru. Martinez wanders into the Liberace Museum, attends Easter Sunday mass in the Strip cathedral of the world's most rapidly expanding Catholic archdiocese, and ponders the meaning of it all with Vegas's leading historians.
Above all, he goes mano a mano at blackjack - learning the ropes from his dealer, gathering tricks of the trade from his breakfast companions, and experiencing the angst of Dostoevsky and the sheer ecstasy of the triumphal gambler.

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Review:

Perhaps the most fun of a bushel of books about the "new" Las Vegas, 24/7 is as surreal and addictive as a hot game of blackjack at 4 a.m. In this first-person chronicle of a month in Las Vegas, Andr�s Martinez whirls through casinos and hotels with his $50,000 book advance, taking notes on characters, nightclubs, and hotel lobbies between wild betting sprees at the blackjack table or roulette wheel.

Part of what makes 24/7 enjoyable is the fact that Martinez is no down-and-out gambler, but a former lawyer with an Ivy League pedigree whose main vice seems to be an addiction to Diet Coke. He takes to his exploits with the intoxication of someone released from dull routine, without ever falling down on the job. As a result, he's never too delirious to note the weirdest details of this desert mirage. It's a city "where buildings themselves perform," lined with such features as a Jules Verne theme park, erupting volcanoes, and battling pirate ships. Early on, the author gets philosophical: "What type of city did we build in the middle of a desert, a metropolis with no reason, beyond our willpower and playful imagination, to exist?" Anyone who's ever asked themselves the same question will satisfy their curiosity with this entertaining, firsthand view of the fastest-growing city in America. --Maria Dolan

From the Back Cover:

In the spring of 1998, mild-mannered, Ivy League-educated Andres Martinez took $50,000 -- most of the advance his publisher was paying for this book -- and headed to Las Vegas for thirty days, ten casinos, and a wild ride through the belly of a neon beast. The result: this brilliant, often hilarious chronicle of flesh, flash, and gambling in a city where everyone dreams of hitting the jackpot -- and once in a while, someone actually does.

From seedy strip clubs to sprawling suburbs, from the sumptuous Bellagio to the Liberace Museum, Martinez meets a host of colorful characters...gathering tricks of the trade from blackjack dealers and fellow bleary-eyed gamblers, attending Easter Sunday mass on the Strip, befriending a family man who raised six kids while losing eight million dollars as a sports gambler. An exhilarating joyride of a read, 24/7 is a breathless tour of America's Sin City...as seen through the eyes of a man making $1.65 million in wagers in a single month. Guess how much he took home?

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