‘How strange’: Author mines experiences as UNLV grad student for debut novel

San Francisco-based writer Arel Wiederholt Kassar has mined his experiences as a UNLV grad student for his debut novel, “The Desert Spring Movement.”

“Andreas Nørgaard, Danish poet, vanishes in Las Vegas and leaves behind a single letter recounting his final days in the city,” according to the official description from the publisher, Bench Editions. “Now, four narrators grapple with his enigmatic legacy, exploring questions of individualism, disillusionment, consumerism and artistic obsession.”

Neon: What is your connection to Las Vegas?

Arel Wiederholt Kassar: I lived in Las Vegas for three years while doing my MFA at UNLV.

What should potential readers know about “The Desert Spring Movement”?

A group of European artists moves to Las Vegas to start a great American art movement. They fail, and then their leader goes missing. No one knows what happened to him, but everyone has a story to tell. The book is made up of those stories.

What inspired you to write this?

I’ve never experienced bigger culture shock than I did when I moved to Las Vegas. I think this book came out of how strange the place felt to me. It came out of the jaywalkers and the blinding sky and the stray cats. Also, I was surrounded by writers and artists during my time in Vegas, which was both totally awesome and totally irritating. I wanted to write a book that earnestly celebrated its characters for dedicating their lives to making artwork, without ever missing a chance to lampoon them for their self-importance and pettiness and general buffoonery.

What do you hope readers take away from it?

I hope readers in Vegas will recognize their city in my depiction of it. I hope readers outside of Vegas will see that it’s a strange place where art really is made. I hope the book will make people laugh. Most of all, I hope it’ll drum up a little extra business for Starboard Tack.

What’s next for you?

I think I’ll write something about Da Vinci’s painting “The Lady With an Ermine.”