A history, panorama and reverie on the great, empty but lively state of Nevada. It is a book based on travels; but is about people and society, absurd hope and unshakeable dread. For Nevada represents the best and the worst, the frontier paradise and the future abyss. It is a book about landscape, and enormous, desolate views; the silence of the places where nothing happens, and the sudden, total roar of a military plane flying at 50 feet and 2000 mph. It describes the various shades of ochre and mauve; the astonishing extremes of weather; the religion of water; and the blur of red and black on the roulette wheel. Nevada is a meeting place for the oldest mummified remains ever found in North America - and Jerry Lewis; it extends from cowboys on the last great ranches to lone prospectors, from the desperately hopeful in Las Vegas, to the resolute military men, from the exponents of fringe movements of the Mormon church, to the people who live on Route 50, the loneliest road in the world.