Neon Dreams edition by Marilyn Mufson Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Neon Dreams edition by Marilyn Mufson Literature Fiction eBooks 
The grinding tribulations of a promising young woman breaking from the bad habits sewn by her upbringing.
Mufson introduces readers to Rebecca Plotnik, home after college, in the early 1960s, living with her parents in Las Vegas. Her dreams of an acting career in New York City are busily thwarted by her discouraging mother, her gambling-addicted father and her insecurities. Neon may be blinking in the streets, but Rebecca's world is pure noir, a shadow land of enfeeblement, asymmetry and an identity in vertigo, freighted with the banality of her everyday woes and the desperation of finding the right somebody to lift her from her emotional flux and head eastward. A biting, chromatic portrait of Las Vegas in the '60s alternates with Mufson's sure hand that allows Rebecca to make one bad choice after another, falling for men who are too good to be true—one with charm enough to coax a hungry dog off a meat wagon, another not "merely handsome. He was Art."—but just this side of believable to make us fall for them as well. She is also artful with the quality of the book's creepiness—when her father introduces Rebecca to his gang, she says, "I pictured convicts breaking up rocks…I felt like a stripper in a graveyard"; her drop-dead-gorgeous boyfriend Alex's relationship with his mother is a mix of Oedipus, sunglasses and a vodka martini or three (winningly, Alex's siblings have figured out his degenerate ways—"So bohemian," says Rebecca. "Gets pretty boring after a while," says Alex's step-brother.) Rebecca may be enslaved to fattening foods and her mother's admonitions, but she is also a smart cookie, with a worldly eye that knows the difference between Middlemarch and Marjorie Morningstar, and Mufson lets Rebecca's English professor nail her to the cross—"You may have done your best to turn in a shitty paper, as you called it, but your writing still showed promise—a series of brilliant starts that went nowhere."
A deftly crafted tale of an absorbing character in dire straits; readers will be pulling for Rebecca Plotnik.
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Neon Dreams edition by Marilyn Mufson Literature Fiction eBooks
Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. The characters were developed slowly and so convincingly that I truly felt their pain, frustration, disappointment, etc., as they moved through a surreal Las Vegas world, each one with dashed hopes and dreams of what their lives could have been but weren't. Even so, the book is very funny! The family drama and dysfunction is played out so vividly it is surprise at the end to feel so much sympathy for them. The author did a masterful job of getting the essence of each character to shine through, tarnish and all. The whole story manages to be unbelievable and very real at the same time.Product details
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Neon Dreams edition by Marilyn Mufson Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Neon Dreams could as easily have been titled "Neon Insights" for the precision of its well drawn characters and depth of insight into families and human nature. Born to the 60s Las Vegas, Becky survives a derelict father, unfulfilled mother and men who would deceive her at every turn. She emerges wiser for life's painful lessons, and as readers, we do too. I picked this book up and did not put it down until I finished. Outstanding first novel.
A great entry into the literary world for Marilyn Mufson. She gave a realistic depiction of family dynamics, the period of transition and uncertainty that often follows college graduation, and the limited options that women faced at that time. Becky was a complicated character - naive, impressionable and unsure of herself while at the same time jaded and street smart from her experiences growing up in Vegas. I think in some ways Las Vegas was the most interesting character in the book, especially because it was so vividly described by the author. For someone who has only seen Vegas as the glitzy party town it was an education about how messed up it used to be and what it's like to grow up off of the strip. Very interesting read.
Neon Dreams captures the less glamorous side of Las Vegas during the 50's and 60's. It is no wonder that Becky yearns to leave the tawdriness of her surroundings for the romantic vision of acting in New York. While you will not want to live in the Las Vegas described in the book, you will enjoy reading the colorful descriptions of the city and its characters. It is interesting to read about the Bugsy Segal legacy and the beginnings of desert suburban sprawl. Most interesting are the descriptions of Becky's family, her boyfriends, and the awkward situations when they meet. The writing is so vivid that my feet hurt while reading about Becky's tortured walk through a rocky, debris strewn desert landscape. Both funny and poignant, Neon Dreams is a great read!
Neon Dreams unfolds young Rebecca Plotnik's quest for emancipation from her morally decrepit home¬town, Las Vegas. Brought up by loser, gambler and father, Izzy, and narcissistic, over-involved Sadie, "the kind of mother who stares at your crotch when she's talking to you because it's the part of you she hates most," Becky states that "half my childhood was spent cowering in closets waiting for them to kill each other." Girls in her high school class aspired to be cocktail waitresses but wound up marrying slot-machine mechanics, drinking beer, eating Twinkies and weighing two hundred pounds. Becky's boyfriend's 38-year old glamorous mother heads another modern family of five kids from 5 husbands.
Becky is torn between impulses and ideals, but manages to emerge full of virtue. Looking up from the sleaze to see the stars, she survives a life full of jerks, pretenders, con artists and aggressors, saved by a passion for great literature and theater.
As Professor Milligan instructs his English class, "to list at least five novels that have made an impact on you in the last five years," our disorganized heroine, struggling to borrow a pen and notebook, draws his glaring attention. "Unless you haven't read anything in the last five years," he adds, "which case you shouldn't be taking this course."
I blurted out "The Catcher in the Rye."
What was it you liked about it?" he asked, bored already.
I didn't just like it, I said, hating him. It was up there with 1984, and Camus's The Stranger, and Ginsberg's Howl, because it was about somebody who's persecuted for being honest. Books like those you don't just like."
This snappy read coherently hangs upon super-colorful exposition, humor ("Thank God you have one normal parent," says obnoxious Sadie while arraigning Izzy), the milieu of 1962, aphorism ("next to compromise, security's the ugliest word I know"), paradox ("as for respectability, Vegas is the only place in America where it's for sale. No questions asked") and razzle-dazzle plot reversals. Apparent dirt balls, crooks and an incidentally callous bus driver, turn out to be victims, good guys or worse. The stunning finale precipitates like a thunderclap, to tie it all up with loose ends. Along the way it supplies psycological insights, critical perspective on America and moral vision.
Neon Dreams is a colorful novel about love, loss, and life in Las Vegas. A truly entertaining read, I didn't want to put it down.
This author knows Vegas. This author really knows how the seamy side of Vegas works. Neon Dreams is a great read with a view of what it is like to grow up as a women in the town. Makes you want to go there, fix it, and get the hell out.http//www./review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_pr_wr_but_top?ie=UTF8&nodeID=&asin=B003WUYV3W
Such an engaging read from start to finish! The writing was incredibly descriptive, bringing every scene to vivid life. Quite a few characters were introduced during a short period of time, but all were well-drawn and fit together flawlessly, especially toward the end, which featured some unforeseen plot twists. The author did a fabulous job of examining the sometimes messy dynamic between ambition, love, and family, particularly in a tension-filled family. I highly recommend this novel.
Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. The characters were developed slowly and so convincingly that I truly felt their pain, frustration, disappointment, etc., as they moved through a surreal Las Vegas world, each one with dashed hopes and dreams of what their lives could have been but weren't. Even so, the book is very funny! The family drama and dysfunction is played out so vividly it is surprise at the end to feel so much sympathy for them. The author did a masterful job of getting the essence of each character to shine through, tarnish and all. The whole story manages to be unbelievable and very real at the same time.
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