Overview

A vivid and enlightening oral history of homelessness in the Las Vegas storm drains and the hard work of re-entering mainstream society. The hundreds of people living in the flood channels of Las Vegas have provided one of the more fascinating and enduring international stories of the past decade. This underground community has received plenty of news coverage and dramatic portrayals by CSI, Criminal Minds, and the Jason Bourne franchise. But the fact that dozens of tunnel dwellers have clawed their way out of the drains and turned their lives around has received far less attention. Dark Days, Bright Nights is the follow-up to the bestselling Beneath the Neon and shares the harrowing stories of Sin City's most marginalized people, from bottoming out in homelessness to mending relationships with family and adjusting to jobs, housing, and sobriety. These redemption stories cast light on a rarely seen side of Las Vegas and offer a portrait of homelessness and recovery in America. They are the happy, though not Hollywood, endings to the infamous tunnel tale, documented through unflinchingly honest personal accounts.

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9798200202058

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Stephen R. Thorne is a professional actor and a member of the Trinity Repertory Acting Company in Providence, Rhode Island. He has played Hamlet, Henry V, and Tom Joad, among many other roles. Stephen has narrated over fifty audiobooks. Matthew O'Brien is a journalist and social worker who has been considered the foremost authority on homelessness in the Las Vegas storm drains for the past fifteen years. As a staff writer for the Las Vegas weekly newspaper CityLife, he cowrote a series on the issue in 2002. It went viral and received national media attention. In 2004, he began work on a book about the subject, Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, a collection of gritty narratives exposing the dark side of Las Vegas. In 2009, O'Brien founded Shine a Light, a not-for-project organization that provides food, clothing, housing, and counseling services to those in the drains. Through his outreach work and as a guide for visiting journalists, he has continued to visit the tunnels and assist people seeking paths out of homelessness. These inspiring stories, which O'Brien would've never envisioned when he first went underground in 2002, led him to conduct interviews for a new book collecting voices of hope and recovery forged from deep despair. O'Brien is also the author of My Week at the Blue Angel a collection of narrative journalism. He has a master's in creative writing from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and a Silver Pen (mid-career award) from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.

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