John O'Brien (May 21, 1960 – April 10, 1994) was an American author. His first novel Leaving Las Vegas was published in 1990 by Watermark Press and made into a film of the same name in 1995.
O'Brien committed suicide by gunshot two weeks after learning that his novel, Leaving Las Vegas, was to be made into a movie. His father says that the novel was his suicide note. Two more of his novels were published posthumously: Stripper Lessons (Grove Press, 1997) and The Assault on Tony's (Grove Press, 1996), both of which had been left unfinished at the time of his death and were completed by his sister, Erin. A third manuscript, Better, was published by Akashic Press in 2009.
