Las Vegas is both stranger and more normal than you might imagine, and for some reason, people don’t think anyone lives there.

The days, weeks, and months after the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

“People who didn’t live pre-Internet can’t grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was. The only bookstores sold Bibles the size of coffee tables and dashboard Virgin Marys that glowed in the dark. I stopped in the middle of the SAT to memorize a poem, because I thought, This is a great work of art and I’ll never see it again.”