“I love this country and respect others who feel the same regardless of where they are from. The problem is much like being a good Christian, patriotism is in the eye of the beholder and too many people use their love to try to gain power over others.”

This is the second part of an interview with Arthur Nersesian. The first part can be read at uwmpost.com in the fringe section.

As his characters step through their situations, they find out a little bit more about themselves, and, very often, they have to wait until the end of the book to fully understand what they learned and where exactly it happened.

Like many writers, he finds inspiration for some of his characters from his real life, while others start out as rough sketches in his head, and, as he mentally develops them, they take on a life of their own.

The key figure in “Unlubricated,” for example, was based on a previous girlfriend, and the junkie heroine (pun intended), of “Chinese Takeout” was based on a young woman he saw passing out syringes at the local needle exchange.

However, he has no illusions about the problems that many people face; most of the issues in life are not gender specific. Women and men both face many of the same crises of consciousness at different points in their lives.

While he writes in the first person, and is as sympathetic as possible to all of his characters, he is addressing issues that others can relate to in some way.

“In all my works… there has always been some aspect of me, even with the two novels I've written from a female POV. It’s amazing how many problems jump the sex barrier.”

One of the problems that most people across the nation could relate to was the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. His novel “Unlubricated” uses the attacks as a backdrop, and like many New Yorkers, he was very much affected by them.

The attacks pretty much shut down the tourism industry for a short time, and health problems were on the rise as a result of the smoke many breathed from the site of the towers.

Many entertainers were modifying their acts in order to avoid any criticism whatsoever of what had happened, but most of “Unlubricated” could easily be construed as a direct criticism not of the attacks themselves, but how many people reacted to them.

In one scene, two of the characters are nearly killed while hitching a ride from an overzealous patriot whose American flag ends up covering the windshield at one point.

He explains, “I love this country and respect others who feel the same regardless of where they are from. The problem is much like being a good Christian, patriotism is in the eye of the beholder and too many people use their love to try to gain power over others. Even if some guy believed the same exact things I did, I'd find him annoying if they were sanctimonious about it.” Six years later, like most of America, Mr. Nersesian has moved on.

A typical day begins with exercise and ends with writing, with “business stuff” peppered in over the course of a given day.

It could be argued that his lack of Stephen King-like worship on the part of many readers gives him an edge over his better known contemporaries, as he is still writing about the trials and tribulations of everyday life, 10 years after he first tasted success.

“A lot of others like the artist lifestyle without really making the leap to being artists.” It would be easy enough for him to concern himself with such things, but any who have read and enjoyed his books can, if nothing else, appreciate the fact that he hasn’t.

In a world where so many writers rely on a formula for all of their books, he has continued to take his life and turn it into art, and once you trade in your observational skills for a country club membership, that becomes almost impossible to do.

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