The Ivory Coast: A Novel [Paperback]

Charles Fleming (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

It is 1955 in Las Vegas, and the Chicago mob man Mo Weiner is bankrolling ex-boxer Worthless Worthington Lee and the city's first all-black hotel-casino. The Ivory Coast is rising up from the dust, on the wrong side of town. And out of the shadows steps Deacon, a white horn player with a dark past and a genius for jazz. Mo mistakes him for a hitman. Worthless takes him for a friend. Anita, the mixed-race beauty he falls for, wants him for herself. And Haney, the corrupt and racist cop who runs this hot desert oasis of sin and sand, wants him rubbed out.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Something about the gaudy, vulgar, appalling milieu of Las Vegas seems to defeat filmmakers (except for the original Ocean's 11), and writers too, as this first novel by Fleming confirms. The sprawling narrative repels more than it fascinates, eventually falling victim to its own excesses. In 1955 Vegas, a talented white trumpeter named Deacon is asked by Mo "the Man" Weiner, owner of the Thunderbird casino, to do a hit job on a certain messenger from L.A. The messenger is carrying a suitcase containing something of vital importance to Thomas Haney, top cop on the Vegas strip, who'll do anything to get hold of it. Meanwhile, Worthless Worthington Jones, an ex-boxer, plans to open the first black casino, the Ivory Coast, with the help of silent partner Mo. The author has evoked a lost era of high living and conspicuous consumption with clarity and persuasiveness, so much so that you can choke on the unfiltered cigarette smoke wafting from the blaring, neon-lit town. What's more, he understands the psychology of its denizens: "When a real gambler starts losing real money, the money becomes unreal. First, losing the money loses significance, and then losing the money becomes the entire point." Alas, the book falls back on most of the old Vegas clich‚s, with name dropping aplenty (Sinatra, Dino, Satchmo, Ella, et al.). More regrettably, Fleming saturates the plot in violence, which erupts periodically and pointlessly, so that the novel, in spite of its epic pretensions, comes up snake eyes. (Feb. 25)Forecast: A smartly designed jacket (with a pair of dice as "O"s) and the recent remake of Ocean's 11 may give this novel a boost. The author's status as a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair as well as a former staff writer for Newsweek and Variety should help even more.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Just in time for the remake of Ocean's Eleven, here is an entertaining debut thriller about Las Vegas in the Rat Pack glory years. In Fleming's story, however, the focus is not on the Strip, where Frank, Dean, and Sammy cavorted, but on the city's West Side, where Vegas' first all-black casino, the Ivory Coast, is set to open. The casino's front man, a business-savvy former boxer, fears trouble from Vegas' top cop, Haney, a notorious racist. Meanwhile, Deacon, a Chet Baker-like trumpet player, finds himself in possession of a suitcase full of photos exposing Haney's kinky side. The suitcase, the kinky cop, and an underage truck-stop waitress soon embroil Deacon in a many-sided plot whose various strands come together on the casino's opening night. Despite a clumsy ending in which Fleming has trouble connecting all his dots, this is a thoroughly engaging tale in which the historical elements are nicely integrated into the action. For more on black Las Vegas in the '50s, see Bill Moody's Death of a Tenor Man (1995). Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Picador (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312422148
• ISBN-13: 978-0312422141
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,828,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A GREAT NEW TALENT! BRAVO!, February 18, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ivory Coast: A Novel (Hardcover)

Fascinating story in an exotic setting. Fleming takes us to the world inhabited by Blacks in 1950's Las Vegas. Here we find the entertainers forbidden to drink at the hotels where they work and the whites who follow them to their after-hours haunts. However, this no set piece of charicactures. Each denizen of Fleming's world has a purpose, and it is bound to collide with someone else. The story moves, ducks, and jives like a manic dance, all leading to a conclusion that is as interesting as it is disturbing. Fleming is a masterful storyteller.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very unpleasant, August 16, 2002

By 

Charlotte Vale-Allen (CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Ivory Coast: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really wanted to like this book. However, I found it increasingly difficult even to keep reading it. It has a cast of such hateful, self-interested and/or depraved characters; it has so much racism and violence, that it's not even a remotely pleasurable reading experience. Add to that, many anachronisms ("good to go" and "gone south", for example, are two very modern terms not in common usage in the mid-50s) and sloppy copyediting (Spike Lee instead of Spike Jones, names misspelled, countless extra and/or misspelled words) along with famous names repeated over and over, and you have a book with a good premise that simply isn't sufficiently compelling or believable to hold one's interest. Graphically ugly sexual scenes and scenes of horrific racism further detract from what might have been an interesting examination of an era. It may well be that Las Vegas was every bit as crooked and racist as described by author Fleming but without any likeable characters, it's not possible to care much about what happens in this book--particularly with a drug-and-alcohol-addicted hero who seems always to do the wrong thing and who never becomes entirely real. That's unfortunate, because Fleming's pedigree is impressive. But a good book requires more than just a lot of research. It also requires a beating heart and The Ivory Coast's major failing is its lack of that very thing.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting 1950s thriller, February 7, 2002

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ivory Coast: A Novel (Hardcover)

In 1955, trumpet player Deacon rides the bus from Chicago to Las Vegas. He barely disembarks from the bus when Mo "the man" Weiner pages him. Deacon knows you always respond when someone called "the man" wants to see you and immediately does. Mo orders Deacon to drive two hours to Shipton Wells where he is to warn someone to go back to Los Angeles. Deacon does the job, but someone else shoots the man anyway. Deacon grabs the man's suitcase and asks Anita, a waitress he just met, to stash it for him.

Deacon realizes everyone in Vegas tries to manipulate the odds. Mo is the front for the Chicago and Los Angeles mobs and plans to make a killing on a new casino, THE IVORY COAST, that he will open in the Black West Side of town. Worthless Worthington Jones is his front with his own contrivance for a killing. Police chief Haney has his schemes to trump everyone else. All three intersect with Deacon and that suitcase he lifted, making life dangerous for the horn player.

Though Deacon trusting Anita with the booty he snatched seems strained, readers will find Charles Flemming's debut novel a fascinating look at 1950's Las Vegas. The story line is so rich with history that it makes it possible for the audience to roll with high rollers and observe the Black stars unable to eat or sleep where they performed. THE IVORY COAST is a tremendous historical intrigue that is at its finest with its fifties texture that fans of mid-twentieth century tales will enjoy.

Harriet Klausner