Whiteout

"Scenery. Celebrities. Snow. Who wouldn't want to live in Aspen, Colorado? Fresh from riding the rail with hoboes and running the border with Mexican illegals, acclaimed author Ted Conover decided it was time to look at--and take part in--the good life. Distrustful of the hype, Colorado native Conover approached Aspen from a different perspective. He went behind the wheel of a Mellow Yellow taxi for a ski season, crashed Don Johnson's star studded Christmas party, and was sent out on the beat for The Aspen Times. He joined a gang of retired drug dealers for a "Big Chill" weekend, waited with New Agers for expected landing of a flying saucer, an dropped in unexpectedly on John Denver, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and Playboy playmate Barbi Benton. Conover certainly learned about the real Aspen--maybe a little too much. Because it wasn't long before he got caught up in it. His seduction by Aspen's beauty, sex, and "perfect life-style" parallel this one small town's own experience in selling its soul. Funny, poignant, and revealing, Whiteout is a meditation on the sweet temptation of wealth, the loss of home, and vainglorious quests for paradise. Conover captures as never before the glitzy allure--and heartbreaking reality--of la dolce vita, American style."--Jacket