“There is also an only-in-Vegas quality to almost all the Blue Vegas narratives, some of which are closer to vignettes than stories.”
~ Richard Abowitz, Los Angeles Times
“Blue Vegas offers frankly written character tales drawn from real Las Vegas lives lived on the come and on the streets. Like H. Lee Barnes’ The Lucky and Charles Bock’s Beautiful Children, P Moss’ Blue Vegas adds to a list of books that are authentic testaments to the truth of the city and the power of its human stories demanding to be given voice. Befitting the Vegas mythos, Moss’ writing is unblinkingly explicit about gambling, sex and excess, honestly rendered and plainly revealed. Grounded in its many ironies, Blue Vegas shows how it is that Las Vegas can leave people stuck in mazes or change their lives in the blink of a second, and can even save their souls.”
~ Doug Unger, Novelist
Douglas Unger is the author of four novels, including Leaving the Land, a finalist for the Pulitzer and Robert F. Kennedy awards, and Voices from Silence, a year’s end selection by Washington Post Book World. His most recent book is Looking for War and Other Stories. He is a co-founder of the M.F.A. in Creative Writing International program and the Schaeffer Fellowship Ph.D. with Creative Dissertation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Unger serves on the executive boards of Words Without Borders, Punto de Contacto/Point of Contact, and worked for five years as Grants and Acquisitions Director for the International Institute of Modern Letters until its absorption by the Black Mountain Institute. In addition to teaching and writing, Unger is the Interim Chair of the Department of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“All in all, this award-winning book represents aspects of Las Vegas that are seldom covered in mainstream literature. Moss is an able storyteller with extensive knowledge of the culture he examines.”
~ Nevada Review
“P Moss has bestowed a complex, fascinating, and not always apparent view of Sin City that is way overdue. P Moss is a gambler, social analyst, and tavern owner of the Double Down Saloon (DDS boasts of “bringing a much needed sophistication to Las Vegas. Interplanetary abstract. Urban decay. The Anti-Vegas… made for the lunatic fringe”) and delivers a gem of a ride in his first published book. Moss writes with a breezy and entertaining style in recounting very human stories about the curious, remarkable, and shadowy lives of the always interesting Vegas locals and visitors. All the captivating and absorbing details of the lives of hard-core gamblers, criminals, show girls, and other quirky characters are on display in this very amusing and fun read.
As a Las Vegas resident and minister I thoroughly enjoyed this work: at times I roared with laughter and other times felt pity for the people who got trapped by powerful things and allurements.
This is a great book for the Las Vegas tourist and wonderful right-on-target volume for the Vegas local. Makes a delightful read on a plane, while on the beach, or at the buffet table.”
~ Mike Robinson, Amazon.com
“The stories are as varied as each person that make up our beautiful town.Focusing on the citizens who live and experience life off the strip as most of us do, it paints a different side of life here in Vegas. Most people are familiar with the bright neon of the strip but know little of the burned out bulbs of life behind it.”
~ Sinner Magazine