“The rise and fall of companies proceeds like what happens to civilizations. Tyranny takes over, progress stops. All suddenly gets fixed in place, frozen due to fear, then darkness descends.” - Dream City, a novel by Douglas Unger
The above could be a statement pulled from an article written about America’s 21st century woes. Instead, it’s from Dream City, one of the most politically insightful novels I’ve read this year. Written by Douglas Unger, who is also a professor and co-founder of the Creative Writing International program at UNLV, this novel takes on the mythology of Las Vegas by way of the consumerism and marketing that drives the casino industry. Instead of yet another Vegas mafia story, the novel follows C.D. Reinhart, a failed actor who becomes consumed with material success as he attempts to climb the ranks of corporate casino land. Set in between the boom years that begin in the 1990s until the Great Recession bottoms out this city, Unger interrogates how much of this city is driven by marketing and hype and how much it is also a working class town that relies on cheap, expendable labor.
The novel’s trigger is the death of construction worker Lester “Red” Stahl and how his death sets off a PR crisis for Pyramid World, a brand new resort built to emulate Egyptian pyramids. Anyone who has ever visited Vegas knows that there is indeed a pyramid-shaped casino resort here. Unger is interested in how the backbone of the city, the construction and hospitality workers, are extremely important but are often exploited by the very industry they helped to build and sustain.
More than any other city in the United States, Las Vegas was hit the hardest by the Great Recession due to its economic reliance on the hospitality industry. In our interview, Doug goes into detail about the amount of research he put into the book and how long it took him to write this book. As mentioned in our chat, it reminded me of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities in some regards. Unlike Wolfe’s book, Dream City isn’t a satire. It does tackle greed and the pursuit of money and material success though in a way that echoes elements of that novel. It is also very journalistic in its mix of facts and fiction. Doug mentions that Wolfe’s book, Jay McInerney’s Brightness Falls, and Roberto Arlt’s The Seven Madmen influenced Dream City.
In our interview, Doug talks about wanting to get the nonfiction details correct and you can tell he did extensive research. When you read this book, you do get an excellent historical and sociological overview what Las Vegas really is. If you think you know Las Vegas because you’ve seen Casino or The Hangover or you’ve visited it a few times on vacation, you don’t really know it.
“Impatience with your own process is the enemy.”
Doug also provides excellent advice for writers, especially those of us yearning to be published. He believes many younger authors feel such an intense pressure to publish and succeed. Instead of fixating on this, he believes writers should spend time learning and refining their process before putting their work out into the world. Creative writing is an art and we aren’t meant to be content machines. As a professor, Doug has mentored and taught countless writers who are now well known authors. Some of these authors include George Saunders, Claire Messud, Joe Milan, Jr (who I interviewed several years ago) and many others. So, he knows a thing or two about writing.
Dream City was previously reviewed in Electric Literature. Doug also engaged with
’s essay “Contemporary Literary Novels are Haunted by the Absence of Money,” in order to provide an overview of novels that do take on the presence of money.If you’re looking for a new read, something that takes a critical look at the concepts of work, materialism, marketing and consumerism and the economy, or if you’re very interested in Las Vegas and the inner workings of the corporate casino industry, you should check out Dream City.
About the author:
Photo by Walter Dinger
Douglas Unger is the author of four novels, including Leaving the Land, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Robert F. Kennedy award; and Voices from Silence, a year’s end selection by “The Washington Post Book World”; as well as the collection of short fiction, Looking for War and Other Stories. He has contributed stories and essays to “Narrative,” “Boulevard,” “Southwest Review”, “The Brooklyn Rail,” “The Writer’s Chronicle,” “The Nevada Independent,” and other publications. He is co-founder of the M.F.A. in Creative Writing International and the Ph.D. with Creative Dissertation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he teaches in the Department of English affiliated with the Black Mountain Institute, an important literary center in the American West. In addition to teaching and writing, Doug Unger is a well-known literary activist, serving on the executive board of “Words without Borders” ( www.wordswithoutborders.org ), the widely read online magazine of international literature in translation, and as Education Chair for its free public access education initiative, Words without Borders Campus ( www.wwb-campus.org ). For these and other arts nonprofits and creative causes, he has traveled extensively in support of the literary arts around the world. Dream City is Douglas Unger’s sixth book, the product of ten years of research and writing, and of thirty-two years of life experience and enduring friendships in Las Vegas.
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