Still Holding : A Novel of Hollywood

Rating:
Summary: Nasty Laughs at Show Biz Vanity
Review: There's something refreshingly unforgiving in Bruce Wagner's lacerating Hollywood satire; those readers who've had a love/hate relationship with the movie business, an attraction-repulsion dynamic that loves movies themselves and yet is sickened by the business culture that makes it possible, will find the nasty laughs here telling, truthful, and an overdue joy to read. Anyone else who desire something redeeming to emerge from all the bad faith, a kind act or sacrifice arising from some forgotten reservoir of decency would be better off seeking less severe wit. Wagner mines the old joke about Hollywood that "underneath the tinsel there's more tinsel", and obviously appreciates Jean Baudrillard's theories on simulacara,
where the slavish and stylized impression has replaced the real; set this heady abstraction on to the business of celebrity lookalikes and the community that arises among them, we get a twisting , funhouse mirror of Hollywood , a parallel existence that mimes the worst and most inane features of the stars they imitate. Wagner, in addition, writes like a wizard.


Rating:
Summary: It All Comes Together in This Book
Review: This book is wildly energetic, hilarious, disarmingly harsh, but above all heartbreaking and beautiful. For those who loved "I'm Losing You," Bruge Wagner once again delivers everything great about that book, this time with a much stronger, more satisfying story. "Still Holding" is a fantastic read. As with all great novels, I found myself torn reading this book-- I wanted to race through it and devour the crazy story, but at the same time slow down and re-read the gorgeous writing. Nobody does cruelty with a light touch better than Wagner. I highly recommend this book to anyone who not only wants to learn about the inner workings of Hollywood but also wants to see one of our great writers working at his peak.

Rating:
Summary: It All Comes Together in This Book
Review: This book is wildly energetic, hilarious, disarmingly harsh, but above all heartbreaking and beautiful. For those who loved "I'm Losing You," Bruge Wagner once again delivers everything great about that book, this time with a much stronger, more satisfying story. "Still Holding" is a fantastic read. As with all great novels, I found myself torn reading this book-- I wanted to race through it and devour the crazy story, but at the same time slow down and re-read the gorgeous writing. Nobody does cruelty with a light touch better than Wagner. I highly recommend this book to anyone who not only wants to learn about the inner workings of Hollywood but also wants to see one of our great writers working at his peak.

Rating:
Summary: Great reading
Review: What a performance! What a performer! The performance is Bruce Wagner's latest in his trilogy, and it's called STILL HOLDING; the performer is Bruce Wagner, a writer who at times seems to write with a chainsaw--as biting a satire of Hollywood, from stars to hangers on, look-alikes, delirious fans, as any other written; and yet also touching, in a tough way--Wagner is always tough and sweet at the same time; he clearly likes some of his wacky characters, including the Drew Barrymore look-alike, and--get this, Drew Barrymore herself, a neat trick Wagner pulls off. He also understands the fading star Kit, who turns to Yoga, whose fate it is to share it with a character he plays. The prose is furious--at times fragments, as if Wagner can't wait to move on--and neither can the reader, held captive from the first page. Comparison's? Cross the sharp-eyed but more delicate Waugh with Nathaniel West's even harsher visiton and you got it. Which is not to say that Wagner is not in a class by himself, an original writer who turns the Hollywood he clearly knows so well into his own canvas. Terrific novel, terrific writer.

Rating:
Summary: Boring, stale cartoonish characters
Review: Yet another lesson to not always believe the hype. . . this awful story is simplistically about hypocritical, narcissistic actors and their buddhist pretenses and some pathetic fans--the BIG UNFRESH IDEA of this repetitious, shallow and stultifying novel. The only good thing about the book is it makes you respect even more the writers who know how to build an interesting, complex plot and create characters to match. The guy who wrote this book seems like a garden variety hipster poseur to me. I'm selling my copy to a used bookstore just so I can get a few dollars back from the sum I wasted on it.