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The Pahrump Report
A challenging tale of love, scorn, and the desert life from feminist icon Lisa Carver. When Lisa lands in Pahrump, Nevada with her husband, drama unfolds as his addiction and dreams collapse into eventual divorce. Life is lived as Lisa has always lived it, in zen and acceptance of the good and bad. The story details her experiences and ends with her last relationship with Steve, a banker who has multiple secrets that once revealed, show the reader the core of Lisa Carver.
- GenresMemoir
169 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 11, 2021
7 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Crystal Carver
21 books111 followersLisa Crystal Carver (born 1968[1]), also known as Lisa Suckdog, is an American writer known for her writing in Rollerderby.[2] Through her interviews, she introduced the work of Vaginal Davis, Dame Darcy, Cindy Dall, Boyd Rice, Costes (her ex-husband with whom she performed Suckdog), Nick Zedd, GG Allin, Kate Landau, Queen Itchie & Liz Armstrong to many. A collection of notable articles from the zine was published as Rollerderby: The Book.
She started touring with the performance art band Psycodrama when she was 18 years old.[3] It was also at this time that she became a prostitute, which has been a major theme in her writings over the years.[4] She began touring with Costes a year later, and would also tour without him when he was in France. She toured the U.S. and Europe six times, the last time in 1998. The noise music soap operas included audience interaction including dancing and mock-rape of audience members.[3]
Carver is the also the author of Dancing Queen: a Lusty Look at the American Dream, in which she expounds upon various relics of pop culture past, including Lawrence Welk, roller rinks, and Olivia Newton-John. In 2005, Soft Skull Press released her newest book, Drugs Are Nice, detailing her early childhood and later romantic relationships with Costes, Boyd Rice and Smog's Bill Callahan. In addition to writing her own 'zines and books, Carver has also written for various magazines (including Peter Bagge's comic book Hate) and kept a fictionalized journal about her sex life for the website Nerve. Although Carver no longer writes her journal for the site, she is still a semi-regular contributor. The online Journal at Nerve was subsequently published in book form as The Lisa Diaries: Four Years in the Sex Life of Lisa Carver and Company. (via Wikipedia)
She started touring with the performance art band Psycodrama when she was 18 years old.[3] It was also at this time that she became a prostitute, which has been a major theme in her writings over the years.[4] She began touring with Costes a year later, and would also tour without him when he was in France. She toured the U.S. and Europe six times, the last time in 1998. The noise music soap operas included audience interaction including dancing and mock-rape of audience members.[3]
Carver is the also the author of Dancing Queen: a Lusty Look at the American Dream, in which she expounds upon various relics of pop culture past, including Lawrence Welk, roller rinks, and Olivia Newton-John. In 2005, Soft Skull Press released her newest book, Drugs Are Nice, detailing her early childhood and later romantic relationships with Costes, Boyd Rice and Smog's Bill Callahan. In addition to writing her own 'zines and books, Carver has also written for various magazines (including Peter Bagge's comic book Hate) and kept a fictionalized journal about her sex life for the website Nerve. Although Carver no longer writes her journal for the site, she is still a semi-regular contributor. The online Journal at Nerve was subsequently published in book form as The Lisa Diaries: Four Years in the Sex Life of Lisa Carver and Company. (via Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 16, 2021
Lisa Carver can find the bright side of anything and that light attracts a carousel of weirdos who make her writing read like a merry-go-round of the fantastic, which it is but all true.
March 9, 2021
Amusing book from Lisa, she moves to an extremely small town in Nevada (Pahrump, NV) with her husband, and decides to write a monthly newsletter (The Pahrump Report!) for people who donated for it, and it's all compiled in this book. If you're familiar with Lisa's writing from Rollerderby, you pretty much know what to expect. Documents the falling apart of her marriage, and her later love interests and meets a lot of interesting characters in Pahrump, which seems like its a few decades behind the rest of the world. Lisa's open-mindedness really shines through as most people there are very conservative there, and she even starts going to church! She spends a lot of time documenting the smaller pleasures of Pahrump - her daily walks with her dogs, and the beautiful sunsets.
Very laid-back breezy reading, this book is simple with some surprises, much like the town of Pahrump.
Very laid-back breezy reading, this book is simple with some surprises, much like the town of Pahrump.
January 23, 2024
There is a moment in her new book The Pahrump Report, when Lisa Carver responds to a question about her occupation by answering: “I am a writer.” Yet in that moment, the word “writer” struck me as a lacking descriptor for all that Carver does in creating a written work of art.
The book chronicles a dizzying three-year period of Carver’s life, as she moves across the country with her husband, builds a home, gets divorced, rents an apartment, falls in love, gets betrayed, tries doing stand-up comedy, visits a brothel and has several other Pahrumpian adventures. It’s a piece that most exemplifies Carver’s skill for not just making a living from writing, but more importantly, making her writing from living.
Carver is indeed a writer, but also a post-punk legend, Rollerderby zine queen, Suckdog Circus freak performance artist and cultural critic. Her history informs and expands her definition of “writer”. It’s hard to imagine Carver sitting down at a laptop to write; I imagine her more of an old school handheld mic plugged into a cassette field recorder type. She is a writer the way Alphonso Lingis is a philosopher, who rejects formal style and takes a hands-on approach to his subjects, preferring to live them instead of just contemplating them, thus inverting the Socratic pursuit of knowledge to read, “The unlived life is not worth examining.”
But a “lived life” doesn’t always translate to good reading (I throw a chiding glance to the copy of Charles Barkley’s autobiography, Outrageous!, sitting on my bookshelf half-read in perpetuity). This is never the case with Carver’s work, and certainly not in this raw memoir narrated from a burnt-toast desert landscape that she manages to convey as a magical American outpost.
The Pahrump Report is an addictive text, a lubed-up superslide of a book that you can’t put down. This is in part from its voyeurism — as she invites you into her every move, from the exciting (a joyride on a “hip-hop party bus” courtesy of Groupon), to the embarrassing (“A terrible thing happened…I pooped my pants.”) — but also for the way she writes: unpredictable, funny, adventurous. It all makes for a thrilling experience in vicarious reading.
Her writing style is very befitting of someone governed by such joie de vivre. She writes free, fast, to hell with smooth transitions, in the middle of her visit to a Buddhist temple, she might turn abruptly to address the reader: “I want to connect with something inside you, something yearning and wild, and say “yes!” to that something.” There doesn’t seem to be anything that isn’t worthy of Carver’s attention as a writer, even tumbleweeds or spitting, but before the narrative can float away untethered into a rambling ether, she knows just when to hammer a stake in the ground with poignant observation or earnest philosophical reflection.
Yet the most compelling aspect of the book is in its humble realization that no matter how free we feel, we are all subject to gravity. It’s the moments of vulnerability where Carver is at her best. The second half of the book produces some of the book’s best writing, with Carver struggling with a loss of agency, heartbreak, alienation, and other byproducts of volatile love.
The Pahrump Report is an epic travelogue of space and emotion, and even as it covers the lowest points of Carver’s heart, it remains inspiring and beautiful. Because no matter what, she is still free, undeniably so. Only the free poop their pants.
The book chronicles a dizzying three-year period of Carver’s life, as she moves across the country with her husband, builds a home, gets divorced, rents an apartment, falls in love, gets betrayed, tries doing stand-up comedy, visits a brothel and has several other Pahrumpian adventures. It’s a piece that most exemplifies Carver’s skill for not just making a living from writing, but more importantly, making her writing from living.
Carver is indeed a writer, but also a post-punk legend, Rollerderby zine queen, Suckdog Circus freak performance artist and cultural critic. Her history informs and expands her definition of “writer”. It’s hard to imagine Carver sitting down at a laptop to write; I imagine her more of an old school handheld mic plugged into a cassette field recorder type. She is a writer the way Alphonso Lingis is a philosopher, who rejects formal style and takes a hands-on approach to his subjects, preferring to live them instead of just contemplating them, thus inverting the Socratic pursuit of knowledge to read, “The unlived life is not worth examining.”
But a “lived life” doesn’t always translate to good reading (I throw a chiding glance to the copy of Charles Barkley’s autobiography, Outrageous!, sitting on my bookshelf half-read in perpetuity). This is never the case with Carver’s work, and certainly not in this raw memoir narrated from a burnt-toast desert landscape that she manages to convey as a magical American outpost.
The Pahrump Report is an addictive text, a lubed-up superslide of a book that you can’t put down. This is in part from its voyeurism — as she invites you into her every move, from the exciting (a joyride on a “hip-hop party bus” courtesy of Groupon), to the embarrassing (“A terrible thing happened…I pooped my pants.”) — but also for the way she writes: unpredictable, funny, adventurous. It all makes for a thrilling experience in vicarious reading.
Her writing style is very befitting of someone governed by such joie de vivre. She writes free, fast, to hell with smooth transitions, in the middle of her visit to a Buddhist temple, she might turn abruptly to address the reader: “I want to connect with something inside you, something yearning and wild, and say “yes!” to that something.” There doesn’t seem to be anything that isn’t worthy of Carver’s attention as a writer, even tumbleweeds or spitting, but before the narrative can float away untethered into a rambling ether, she knows just when to hammer a stake in the ground with poignant observation or earnest philosophical reflection.
I discovered that my husband had taken up spitting. Not chewing tobacco. Just spit. Spitting as a hobby, I guess… I thought it was disgusting, but the thing is, he’d been out there in the desert with his nearest neighbor seven miles away. None of us can predict what forbidden desire will rear up in total isolation. I was about to find out.
Yet the most compelling aspect of the book is in its humble realization that no matter how free we feel, we are all subject to gravity. It’s the moments of vulnerability where Carver is at her best. The second half of the book produces some of the book’s best writing, with Carver struggling with a loss of agency, heartbreak, alienation, and other byproducts of volatile love.
Pahrump doesn’t feel true anymore; I can’t go back. I have to be where I am, and for this moment, where I am is agony. It’s okay. I am only the vessel. This agony was out here waiting, lonesome. Waiting to be witnessed, to be taken in, to be transformed, and released.
The Pahrump Report is an epic travelogue of space and emotion, and even as it covers the lowest points of Carver’s heart, it remains inspiring and beautiful. Because no matter what, she is still free, undeniably so. Only the free poop their pants.
September 10, 2021
Feel good hit of the summer.
September 28, 2022
i loved loved loved this
I read this so slowly because I wanted to savor every page. This might be the best Lisa book yet!
I read this so slowly because I wanted to savor every page. This might be the best Lisa book yet!
March 19, 2023
Lisa Carver walks and writes on the path of righteousness.
July 29, 2024
Alittle more random/ less cohesive than carvers other novels. Still lots of nuggets of great truth and wisdom nestled in constantly!!
June 25, 2025
Im off to read more Lisa Carver in an attempt to mainline her outlook on life into my veins and make it my own!
November 27, 2024
Fortunately for me, I’ve read a lot of Lisa Carver’s books and zines. While I always enjoy her, some of her books are more rushed than others, and I felt that in the writing. Not the case with this book, which began its life as Patreon posts (which I read the first time around, and enjoyed in this form, squeezed together into a linear timeline). This is brilliant, albeit quietly so. Carver’s succinctness and simplicity of description make for fresh and rereadable prose: she’s fun to read, and funny, but a good writer who can really make sentences sing when she wants to. She does, sometimes, while at other times she makes them honk or cough. Everything in this feels deliberate and that deliberation makes for an intimate -feeling read. Definitely the closest I’ve felt to Carver as a reader since her memoir Drugs Are Nice: her personality and values and motivations come through with frank clarity. And she seems like an interesting person to be around. Reading this was a treat.
December 15, 2021
One of her best. I used to be a cultural anthropology grad student warrior prince, and even today I get a bit riled when books, tv shows and horses are described as ethnographic or anthropological.
Carver, Lisa, though? She is the rule-proving exception, "making the familiar strange and the strange familiar" throughout this peerless monograph. I only wish she had spent more time with Heidi Fleiss while in the austere-as-crap Western purgatory described herein.
Carver, Lisa, though? She is the rule-proving exception, "making the familiar strange and the strange familiar" throughout this peerless monograph. I only wish she had spent more time with Heidi Fleiss while in the austere-as-crap Western purgatory described herein.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews