Creighton Professor Publishes New Novel, The Brightest Place in the World

The Brightest Place in the World – an apt title for a novel set in and around Las Vegas. Author David Philip Mullins, a professor at Creighton University, has set his novel in his home town, but rather than referring to the bright lights that set the Las Vegas strip apart, the title just as likely refers to the explosion of the PEPCON chemical plant that occurred in the nearby desert on May 4, 1988.

The book, published June 3, 2020 by the University of Nevada Press, is available at Omaha booksellers The Bookworm and The Next Chapter as well as through online retailers.

Fictionalized to WEPCO in the novel, the story is narrated by four main characters in alternating chapters, documenting their experiences in the wake of the disaster. Kicking the novel off with an explosion seemed like an excellent catalyst, Mullins explained.

“My memories of the PEPCON explosions are hazy, since it’s been 32 years, but I remember a conversation with my father that evening, during which he broke down and cried,” Mullins said. “That moment impacted me, and was part of the reason I wanted to use the PEPCON disaster, or a fictionalized version of it, in the novel. Also, a giant explosion just makes for a great initiating event.”

While Mullins doesn’t feel that growing up in Las Vegas has had a large impact on his writing style, it was the setting for a lot of the stories in his first book Greetings from Below as well as The Brightest Place in the World.

“I love setting stories in Las Vegas.  The location itself is such a living, breathing character,” Mullins said.

One place that very likely did influence Mullins’ writing style is Iowa City, Iowa, where he attended the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. The Workshop has produced a number highly-regarded writers over the years including John Irving (The World According to Garp) and Ann Patchett (Bel Canto). Mullins attend from 2003-2005 earning his Master of Fine Arts degree.
 
“The whole thing was a life-changing experience.  The skills I learned there have been invaluable,” Mullins said. “I consider myself so incredibly lucky to have gone there for graduate school, and to have met the people I met and became friends with there—writers I continue to communicate with all these years later.”
 
Mullins named Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger, The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones and The Point by Charles D’Ambrosio as some of his favorite books and influences. 
 
While Mullins is rightfully proud of his new novel, his students keep him humble.
 
“To my knowledge, none of my students have read my novel. If they have, their reaction has been resentful silence,” he said.
 
Mullins started teaching at Creighton in 2008 and taught of the University of Iowa and the University of Nebraska, Omaha prior to becoming a Bluejay.
 
“I love teaching creative writing,” he said. “It compliments my fiction in all kinds of interesting and useful ways.”
 
Teaching in 2020 with the challenges presented by COVID-19 has been different, but Mullins feels he and his students have adapted well.
 
“It hasn’t been as difficult as I thought it would be to adapt to COVID-19, in terms of teaching,” he said. “My students and I are all masked, but otherwise the environment in the classroom isn’t so different from a normal semester.”
 
While the bright lights of Las Vegas certainly have their appeal, Creighton and Omaha offer a nice contrast to Mullins’ home town
 
“My favorite thing about Omaha is the number of trees the city has—compared, especially, to the neighborhood I grew up in, bordering the desert (very few trees),” he said. “My favorite thing about Creighton is the general quality of my students, both academically and personally.  It’s a great place to work, for that reason.”