THE KING OF VIDEO POKER - PAOLO IACOVELLI

This was a true blind pick-up. I wanted a really short book I could read in a day or two while I wait for the new Pynchon, and I saw this at the library. The title struck me, because video poker did make me think about the 2017 Vegas shooting, and when I picked the book up, I realized that that was, in fact, the topic of this short book. Like many people, I find that particular mass shooting particularly dracular. There’s something up with it. Not only is the body count unreal, 60 killed, almost 500 shot, Paddock, the shooter, is such a black hole. He’s not young, like so many of these mass killers, he doesn’t have a history of violence, the way he made his living is so strange (video poker? How do you even excel at a totally mathematically closed game?), he left no manifesto or clear motive (the only notes they found in the room were calculations he made for the shooting), there was nothing physiologically wrong with his brain, he killed himself long before the police breached the door of his suite, meaning he could have killed more but choose to stop. The list truly goes on. Of course, this has meant a number of conspiracy theories, many involving an arms deal and the Saudis but none of which have ever made much sense to me, all seeking to make sense of the senseless. This novel does not address any of this, there is no hint that Paddock didn’t perpetuate the attack, but instead seeks to get into Paddock's head in the days and months before the Oct. 1st shooting. He comes off as a more pathetic Bret Easton Ellis character. While Ellis’ books are full of empty, sad men, many of whom are morally bankrupt, Patrick Bateman most famously, they are also very cool. They go to the right restaurants, and have girlfriends and boyfriends who are beautiful and desirable. They go to the best clubs and have cool apartments in hip neighborhoods. Paddock does not have any of this, he’s rich but rizz-less. He makes his money in the stupidest, least cool way possible, winning at videopoker. He gets to eat for free and stay for free at all these fancy hotels because he’s a high-roller, but he dresses like shit and no one respects him. His family thinks he’s a weirdo, he has no real friends, he catches feelings for the young hooker he hangs out with. None of the cool facade the Ellis show us, just the emptiness. But in other ways, it is a very Ellis novel, his characters also sort of float around aimlessly, from thing-that’s-supposed-to-make-them-feel-good to another thing-that’s-supposed-to-make-them-feel-good. He even includes a leitmotif of the character seeing and thinking about a billboard (“disappear here” in Less than Zero, “No Limits” here) which made this a bit too close to Ellis for me. But the Ellis critique does still work, there is a nihilistic, hedonistic hole at the center of Amerika, and certainly at the center of Vegas. The book doesn’t quite sell its theory, that Paddock was empty and felt that carrying off a huge mass shooting would be a real accomplishment that would make him famous, but that is the risk about writing a novel seeking to explain or elucidate something that is, ultimately, unknowable. It’s an engaging quick read, it was fun to devour in a day and a half, it’s well written and does a good job moving forward even when nothing much is happening. It really did a good job invoking the emptiness of driving and gambling and spending. But it doesn’t really have a good, original take on Paddock, he just comes off as another sad, empty guy, rich but otherwise a very well-known and common type of guy. So why did he do what he did? No real answers or theories here. I am interested in what the author writes next, this is his debut novel, but I am still on the lookout for good art or theory made in response to the Vegas shooting.