Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

John Katsilometes checks in on Rita Rudner’s new book, a skewering satire on the Vegas casino scene

Rita Rudner's new book centers on a place called Heaven, but this is no walk in the clouds.

Rudner's novel is the set-in-Vegas "Turning the Tables" (Shaye Areheart Books, $23), which is out today and available at bookstores throughout Southern Nevada. We're just getting into an advance copy, but it is clear Rudner's latest effort is a biting satirical look at her adopted home city.

The story unfolds, in large part, at a megaresort called Heaven, the world's most profitable hotel-casino, which is adorned with man-made clouds, and where the staff security guards wear white robes and wings. The lead character, Allie Bowen, is the hotel's wide-eyed 26-year-old vice president of public relations.

According to the book jacket, the young Bowen "glides easily from bribing nosy news teams with Cher tickets to dating the handsome and ambitious Christian Sacco, a successful casino executive with his eye on the president's office." Bowen's hope is that she and Sacco can become the city's "royal couple," but the unscrupulous Sacco has other ideas (dun-dun-dun!).

An early review of the book from Publishers Weekly reads, "Rudner's satirical sense shines as she follows casino executives on a trip to Thailand to scout for the newest restaurant idea - drinking cobra blood - and tours Heaven's new Hello Goodbye project, where customers can have their birthing and dying needs met (one funeral package includes placing customers' ashes into golf balls with their picture emblazoned on them)."

"Turning the Tables" is Rudner's fourth book, following "Naked Beneath My Clothes," "Rita Rudner's Guide to Men" and "Tickled Pink: A Comic Novel." She finished her five-year run at New York-New York over the weekend and is headed for Harrah's on Oct. 2. Publishers Weekly calls "Tables" "an over-the-top send-up of an over-the-top city," and this one is an inside job.

NoteMart

The music industry online publication Pollstar reports that the legendary music locale CBGB is, as long rumored, set to relocate to Las Vegas this year, moving from the New York location that has been its home for 33 years. Club owner Hilly Kristal is reported to be working on finalizing a location for the new club by September; his East Village lease ends in October. Kristal said he plans on moving many items from the old club - including doors and toilets - to the new Las Vegas location, in an effort to keep the authenticity of the club that dubs itself the Home of Underground Rock intact (and CBGB stands for Country Bluegrass Blues) ...

Jeff Greenberg, name-checked in this column over the weekend with a license-plate sighting at Las Vegas Athletic Club, checks in again with some startling news: He has resigned as music director of "The Rat Pack Is Back" at the Greek Isles. Greenberg says that on Thursday, 10 minutes into the show, he "had just had enough" and resigned onstage during his introduction. Greenberg says his decision is the result of an ongoing dispute with producer Dick Feeney ...

Beginning Sept. 7, "Lunchtime With Ira, Live From the Las Vegas Hilton" on KDWN 720-AM, the weekly radio talker hosted by the Hilton's Ira David Sternberg, is moving from noon Mondays to 11 p.m. Thursdays. The show will still be recorded at noon at the hotel's Shimmer Cabaret, and the title will remain the same; the station's new owner, Beasley Broadcasting, is moving its weekly programs to the night where the 50,000-watt signal carries through the West. (As a kid in Pocatello, Idaho, I was able to listen to Vin Scully call L.A. Dodgers night games because of KDWN's strong signal.) ...

Senior moments: The 21st annual Miss Senior Nevada America Pageant is set for 1 p.m. today and Wednesday at the Suncoast Showroom. Fifteen contestants from Las Vegas, Henderson, Mesquite, Nye County and Austin will compete ...

"I love my name in the paper," says one of my favorite vanity plate-spotters, Ruthe Beard, who checks in with the gambling-related (or, gaming-related, if you will) plate DICE711. "It was on a fancy-schmancy white car, but I didn't get the make." Oh well. Good enough.

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