Was it the opportunity to travel back through time to revel in the nostalgic mid-century dazzle of cocktail dresses and fedora hats, Friday dances and varsity football, hard-living Hollywood stars, boxing matches, resorts, race meets, fur coats, and spectacular MCM architecture?
Or was it the vicarious thrill of peeking into the internal operations of mid-century mobsters, sans most of the horror? (You can think of Hot Springs as a sort of “Chicago Light”: all the mobsters, none of the Tommy-gun massacres.)
Maybe it's the way better-known historical events and milestones lace their way into the narrative – the role of Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters in laundering mob money, the birth of the amphetamine crisis, the Cuban revolution, Robert Kennedy’s anti-mob vignette, Hollywood scandals, the Little Rock Nine, Bill Clinton, and more?
Am I the only one who had no idea how close Hot Springs, Arkansas came to usurping Las Vegas's crown as America’s gambling destination?
The author cleverly parallels the story of the rise and fall of Hot Springs with the rise and fall of his grandmother Hazel, providing an opportunity for him to tell his tale not just from the point of view of the “big shots” whose names we recognize, but also from the point of view of the innocent citizens of Hot Springs whose lives were irrevocably intwined in the towns’ booms and busts. By the time the Baptists finally manage to shut down gambling in Hot Springs in the 1960, some Hot Springs residents will have emerged as winners, some will have been fortunate enough to emerge unscathed, but others – like Hazel – will have lost themselves in the whorl of alcoholism, drug addiction, petty cons, and lost dreams.
Does it matter what kept me turning the pages? All I can say is that I tore through this in a weekend and have already recommended it to several friends. Informative and fun!
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