Loving Las Vegas Summary

Colson Whitehead’s story “Loving Las Vegas” was a flashback to his past experience with Las Vegas, including his two friends Darren, and Dan. Darren was a part of a writing group known as “Let’s Go,” which consists of exploring and writing on specific areas in the country. The current writing project for Darren was about Vegas, so Darren loaded up his friends in a beat-up vehicle, and they began to travel. Even though Vegas was the end location, they decided to travel around the country to visit major cities, including Chicago, The Grand Canyon, New Orleans, and more. The group enjoyed their time traveling around experiencing all the new locations, but they still haven't made it to their final destination, Las Vegas. Before they arrived in

Is that wrong? No, however the story shows how much a life of an ordinary kid can change by just simple traveling around the world, and experiencing new things. In the story, the kids seem like they are poor, and careless. Whitehead explains that, “Dan hooked up our ride with new speakers. We didn’t have money or prospects, but we had our priorities straight” (613). Just like any teenager, they do not see money as a huge deal, so they spent it on the items that they believe help the time go through (speakers). Although the kids are very relaxed and easy going, they still appear to be very intelligent. Whitehead believes, “Gambling was a weakness of the ignorant masses, the suckers inhabiting the Great American Middle we’d just driven through” (614). Therefore, he told himself that he was not going to gamble at all. As the kids continue to live their relaxed lifestyles, it appears that they begin to feel more alive as they travel around to new areas of the world. For example, Whitehead (who is against gambling), “dropped a nickel into a one-armed bandit and won two dollars” (613). Traveling around the world gives new perspectives to people in the world, which causes them to be opened to new