Whiteout: Lost in Aspen

by Ted Conover

Overview

The Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of Newjack delivers an irreverent, poignant, and revealing meditation on the lives of the rich in Aspen, Colorado. 

Here is a classic report on the sweet temptation of wealth and the vainglorious quest for paradise as they exist in Aspen, Colorado, featuring a "cast of characters (that) includes such barn-size satirical targets as exclusive health clubs, over-the-hill drug dealers and movie stars and rock stars of wattages bright and dim" (The New Republic).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679741787
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/19/1993
Series:	Vintage Departures
Edition description:	1st Vintage departures ed
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	785,610
Product dimensions:	5.17(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

TED CONOVER is the author of several books, including Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes, and The Routes of Man: Travels in the Paved World. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, and National Geographic. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is distinguished writer-in-residence in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

"A lucid, witty account that bristles with ironies." —San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"[A] cast of characters [that] includes such barn-size satirical targets as exclusive health clubs, over-the-hill drug dealers and movie stars and rock stars of wattages bright and dim." —The New Republic

From the Publisher

Conover ( Coyote ) entertainingly assesses his two years in the resort town of Aspen, Colo. He begins his investigation as a driver for the antiestablishment Mellow Yellow Cab Co.--although most passengers are anonymous and often inebriated, he encounters rock group Fleetwood Mac, who sit in his icy taxi as he flags down a truck for a jump start. Conover misses no chance for Aspen's version of enlightenment: He crashes an exclusive party for actor Don Johnson; delightedly acquires Jack Nicholson's ski mask when the actor forgets it at a restaurant; visits too-agreeable singer John Denver, whose sentimentality is mercilessly satirized by locals; and meets gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson. Eventually he signs on as a reporter for the Aspen Times and is nearly seduced by the town, donning trendy recreational gear and looking askance at Denver, Aspen's plebian neighbor. Disillusionment sets in, however, as he researches Aspen's exorbitantly priced and exceedingly popular New Age retreats, witnesses the dangers of outdoor adventure, learns about escalating real estate values and notices numerous reformed idealists. Low-key, objective and unpretentious, Conover avoids cynicism, letting Aspen's events and individuals speak for themselves. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Silver boomtown in the 1880s, bust a decade later due to the adoption of the gold standard, Aspen, Colorado, now is home to celebrities, Saab police cruisers, and a stagecoach taxi service whose equine employees are fitted with diapers. Working here for two years as cabbie, caterer, and newspaper reporter, Conover serves up an enticing melange appropriate both for stargazers hooked on the lifestyles of the rich and famous and pop sociologists. Rubbing shoulders with people as diverse as John Denver, Hunter S. Thompson, New Age cultists, and a 1980s miner, he offers intriguing commentary on modern Aspen's change from a planned utopia, combining skiing with high culture, to a sybaritic playground. A good addition to larger public library and regional collections.-- Jim Burns, Broward Cty. Lib. System, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Library Journal