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Whiteout: Lost in Aspen | 
 enlarge | Author: Ted Conover
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
Buy Used: $0.39
You Save: $12.61 (97%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 548160
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 067974178X
Dewey Decimal Number: 978.843
EAN: 9780679741787
ASIN: 067974178X
Publication Date: January 19, 1993
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Irreverent, poignant, and revealing, this meditation on the sweet temptation of wealth and the vainglorious quest for paradise as they exist in Aspen, Colorado, features a "cast of characters (that) includes such barn-size satirical targets as exclusive health clubs, over-the-hill drug dealers and movie stars and rock stars of wattages bright and dim" (The New Republic).
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 It's been 20 years since Conover worked in Aspen ... April 8, 2008
... and 10 years have passed since my last visit. Maybe it's time for another road trip, to see what's become of that trendy town. In the meantime, reading about some of its past days will have to do.
Investigative journalist and Colorado native Ted Conover went to Aspen in 1988 to specifically gather material for a book. He hoped to shed light on how and why the tiny silver mining settlement turned into the ultimate poster child for decadence and celebrity. He hoped to determine exactly what "The Aspen Idea" entailed. And so he tried to blend into the community, working first as a taxicab driver and then as a reporter for the Aspen Times newspaper. Both jobs gave him insights into the lives of the various kinds of individuals who can be found there: the native townspeople; the workers who keep local businesses afloat but can't afford to live there; the tourists and outdoor sports fanatics; the hangers-on who camp out in hiding; the servants who maintain empty houses; and the "absentee castlebuilders" who fly in to occupy their McMansions for only a few weeks each year. It's an interesting population mix that's unique to Aspen; at least, it was, during Conover's two-year stay.
Reading his interviews now, 20 years later, is both a thoughtful and sad process. Conover was lucky enough to snag personal time with singer-songwriter John Denver, marble miner Steve Albouy, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and town matron Elizabeth Paepcke. All are now gone: each one of the men, due to tragic circumstances that Conover might explain away as being certain and predestined casualties of the Aspen life. He also had a chance to hang out with a group of former marijuana dealers who made, then lost, much money in that mountain resort. Theirs is a cautionary tale complete in these pages.
Key to the region is a proliferation of New Age workshops, lifestyle sessions, and environmental conferences. Conover sampled a few of them and successfully walked away in one piece, though he was partially jaded by his experiences. Apart from the celebrity spotting, the active night life, and the touchy-feely encounters, Aspen's main source of business is of course its location and appeal to outdoor enthusiasts. Himself a skier and a mountain biker, Conover documented the culture of those sports in which participants duly accept the risks in order to achieve the downhill rush. After all, when you are skiing, "Not only are you the driver, you are the car." Some of his most compelling passages surround the rescue efforts undertaken to search for skiers lost in an avalanche. Yes, the Aspen Life comes at a cost.
Anyone who has spent time in Aspen will enjoy reading this book, even if they don't agree with Conover's assessment. Everyone should visit the place at least once, just for the experience.
An engaging and awesome read June 11, 2007
Ted Conover is one of my favorite authors. I enjoy his ability for immersing himself into whatever subject he is writing and yet managing to maintain a certain impartiality in his observations. Whiteout is no exception to this trend. In it he captures an image of the soul of this very stratified city. He presents the experiences of people from various of it's walks of life and how they interact. What emerges is a work that not only analyzes life in Aspen, but also gives the reader an opportunity for self-examination of his own life and circumstances.
Fascinating Memoir of a Socially Stratified Colorado Town June 13, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Conover is expert at gate-crashing and we are so lucky that he's a great writer, too. Here, he's written about his stint as a cab driver in Aspen, but the engrossing part is his own ability to crash celebrity-only functions.
It's an interesting study in the interaction of haves and have-nots, for the rich and pampered of this famed snow town NEED the hardworking waiters and drivers and maids and ski instructors and yet are often bizarrely detached from the realities of working a steady job. Conover finds ways of crossing into the world of the haves, without ever forgetting who he is.
Conover doesn't show real envy for the rich and famous, but he enjoyed their parties. He's a downhill skiier and cyclist, so he certainly enjoyed the outdoorsy life there and treats a venture into a star studded party as just another nature hike worth detailing. Conover shows a kind of pity, in fact, in a brilliant little section about hanging out in a bar booth with Mick Fleetwood and friends.
Who you'll meet in the vignettes and tales of Conover's observations of Aspen life: the plethora of fine-looking young ladies, the unreal mansions with their no-holds-barred parties, the spoiled nouveau riche corporate wives, movie stars and rock stars, the crotchety old guard of the small town, drunks and granola eaters, skiers and commuters from the working class lowland.
It's not a gossip-fest, nor is it a boring social critique. But it's a real slice of life. And you get a little local history and politics, too. It's a fine book for anyone who is fascinated by how the other half lives.
The author's own mobility, personable nature, and mutability are his true assets. He seemed to walk away from Aspen satisfied and with a desire to explore other realms. Which he does, again and again, in his brilliant books.
Good gift for a ski bum, for a social climber, for anyone who admires the art of schmoozing and faking it. Could be a bit too depressing for someone who lost in an attempt to get rich and join the upper crust.
Another brillian work by the talented Connover. February 2, 2003
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Once again, Ted Connover came through with a completely unique glimpse of a society few people are able to witness. With an amazing gift for immersing himself in different cultures, Ted provides a glimpse into the mostly ultra-rich lifestyle of the Aspenites. I found this novel to be thoroughly entertaining and thought provoking.
 Atypical and disappointing October 17, 2001
15 out of 19 found this review helpful
Ted Conover has a distinctive modus operandus. He writes ethnographic studies of disadvantaged people by becoming part of the population as much as possible. He began, as a college student, becoming a hobo and riding the rails, as documented in "Rolling Nowhere". In his brilliant "Coyotes", he's amazingly successful at integrating himself into the illegal alien population, crossing secretly into the USA several times with Mexican migrant laborers. Most readers will know him from his recent "Newjack", where he becomes a prison guard and Sing-Sing to comment on the lives of guards and inmates."Whiteout" is the odd man out in Conover's oeuvre. We're on familiar territory initially - Conover is a cab driver in Aspen, spying on the lives of tourists while living the life of a working stiff. But he never fully commits, living with a wealthy friend in a palatial mansion, and later house-sitting for another millionaire. Later, he becomes a reporter for the local paper, and most of the book reads like extended versions of the newspaper stories he had opportunity to cover. We get a number of interesting pictures of life in Apsen, from ski bums to society madams, to an odd interlude in northern Florida with a former drug runner who _used_ to be based out of Aspen. Perhaps the shotgun approach is meant to mirror the diversity and complexity of the interaction of social classes in Aspen. Or perhaps Conover saw an opportunity to turn a year off in Apsen into a book with a major publisher. Either way, the reader is left wishing that Conover would pick someone - anyone - to identify with, profile and feature. Instead, we get a mishmash that could only be appealing to readers interested in Apsen or the celebrities who live there. Skip this one and pick up any of his other books instead.
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