Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Living... in Los Angeles. At least, he used to live there when he was a screenwriter. His got fired after his last movie, Bay of Pigs. Not only did he lose his job, but he also lost his family. He's been drinking ever since.
Visiting... Las Vegas to drink himself to death. That is not an exaggeration; that is his actual plan. He cashed in all of his money, paid his AmEx card, and sold his car. And he is going to use the money to spend $250 to $300 a day on booze for the next few weeks. Scotch is his poison of choice, but he'll drink anything.
Interests... drinking and spending time with Sera, a prostitute he met. It started off as a trick, but Ben didn't want to have sex. He just wanted her to stay with him. Then they had their first date, which was at some restaurant near her place. And soon after that, she asked him to move in with her.
Relationship Status... surprisingly good. He thinks he may actually be in love with Sera. As he says, "She's like some sort of antidote that mixes with the liquor and keeps me in balance. Sometimes I even think she's some sort of angel visiting me from one of my drunken fantasies." It's bittersweet for him, though, since his real plan is to die in Vegas. She was never part of his plan. He feels bad about forcing his twisted soul into her life.
Challenge... watching Sera go to work as a prostitute. He knows it's just her job and she'd never get involved romantically with a trick, but he still hates it. So he'll just grab another drink...
Personality... pathetic, to those who see him at bars. What they see is a drunk who can barely stand up and vomits all the time. Sera is the only person who really knows him, and she sees something better in him.
Get to Know him in...
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Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
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“Leaving Las Vegas, the first novel by John O'Brien, is a disturbing and emotionally wrenching story of a woman who embraces life and a man who rejects it, a powerful tale of hard luck and hard drinking and a relationship of tenderness and destruction. An avowed alcoholic, Ben drinks away his family, friends, and, finally, his job. With deliberate resolve, he burns the remnants of his life and heads for Las Vegas to end it all in the last great binge of his hopeless life. On the Strip, he picks up Sera, a prostitute, in what might have become another excess in his self-destructive jag. Instead, their chance meeting becomes a respite on the road to oblivion as they form a bond that is as mysterious as it is immutable. Leaving Las Vegas tells a powerful story of unconditional love between two disenfranchised souls who connect for a fleeting moment.
