Monsoon Season affirms the vitality of the Las Vegas literary scene. These essays touch on themes that endure, no matter how parched and arid the landscape might be. They examine loss—of innocence, love, and water. They appraise Southwestern art, Latino machismo, Las Vegas’ grip on the popular imagination, the thunder and lightning storms that calm the interior storm, extinction and indifference, and a land that once visited must inevitably be returned to. All testify to a desert city that astonishes and sparkles when the rains finally arrive.