As soon as former Las Vegas resident Lee Scrivner released his latest book “Casinolabs” he started getting people asking if he’d seen the hit show “Severance” from Apple TV+.
“My sister was the first one who insisted I watch it,” said Scrivner, who grew up in Las Vegas, “so I finally broke down and watched it and wow what a show.”
To Scrivner’s amazement, both his satirical novel and “Severance” are a surreal, nostalgic look at office culture, with his book set in both a Roman-themed Las Vegas megaresort and mysterious casino design firm where the protagonist is paired with three other coworkers working on top secret projects in a laboratory setting.
“Severance” on the otherhand follows four coworkers who navigate a similarly secretive world where their work selves are separated from their normal lives in a ’90s-era setting, just like “Casinolabs.”
Scrivner said this fits Las Vegas because the city is always trying to be something else.
“It’s become axiomatic, almost cliche, that Vegas has always had an odd relationship with the past, with history, and with civic memory,” he said. “Just like the characters in ‘Severance’ have limited access to their memories, in Vegas we erase ours. We implode our monumental past such as the Dunes, et cetera. There’s also a kind of implied amnesia in the ’90s-era marketing catchphrase, ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’”
Both “Casinolabs” and “Severance” tackle a number of office culture themes, drawing on modern art subgenres like backrooms, liminal spaces and post-Covid office spaces where empty hallways and desks are the new norm.
Scrivner, who went to Bonanza High School and taught at UNLV before lecturing around the world and working for the U.S. State Department in Moscow on two separate occassions (which partially influenced the storyline), said the book also dives into casino culture as well, looking at Las Vegas’ self-replicating cultural theme in which casinos are designed to look like other places.
“There’s tons about casino culture in the novel, and since it is a satire, it could definitely be interpreted as a send-up or spoof of that culture,” he said. “It only playfully takes aim at casino culture, not in an overtly hostile way. It is a bit of a spoof on Vegas casinos of the ’90s, where all themes had to refer to some faraway civilization such as the Luxor, Venetian and Excalibur. This tendency started in the ’60s, of course, with Caesars Palace and the Aladdin.”
Currently an associate professor at National University in San Diego, Scrivner said much of his novel takes place in a megacasino called “Caesars Empire,” clearly a take on a famous Las Vegas megaresort.
“All other casinos keep their real names,” he said. “And then there is the fake casino theme design company, called Casinolabs, which in this fictional world, introduced the idea of making casinos family friendly and labyrinthine to keep guests inside. These are ’90s marketing memes that I play with in the book.”
Scrivner said the book isn’t meant to be taken too seriously as it’s a “zany, satirical literary novel,” however he’s definitely thinking he should start shopping the novel around given the success of “Severance” and the similarities to his work.
“I wonder if I should try to adapt the novel as a screenplay or teleplay?”
Contact Patrick Blennerhassett at pblennerhassett@reviewjournal.com.
