Rating: 
Summary: I'm Losing You
Review: Oops . . . Mr. Wagner dropped the ball after an early promising start. His prose is so dense you need a knife to hack you way through. Skip it.
Rating: 
Summary: Possibly the best Hollywood novel since "Day of the Locust"
Review: Quite posibly the best Hollywood novel since Nathaniel West's "Day of the Locust" or Robert Stone's much under-rated "Children of Light." Wagner has as piercing an eye for character as Nora Ephron, a more rapier wit, and more bulls-eyed capture-effect for nailing the squirming, mercurial nature of the de-centered city. A compilation of vignettes and plotlines loosely interconnected by wry and cunning crossed trajectories of power, desire, carnal predation and patholgical ambition. All of it wired up in electrifying prose and some of the most bitchy and acidic and blackest-of-black humor since Celine. Wickedly funny at every turn. Really a minor (maybe not so minor) masterpiece of the Hollywood genre. Clinically well-observed, vibrant, stylistically ballsy. The critics seem to find it too dark, not plotty enough, bitter, cynical. But insider Wagner ("The Class Struggle in Beverly Hills", "Wild Palms", among others), despite his mainstreamed largely east-coast-imposed postures of populist postmodernist, is a good old fashioned master of realism. The Flaubert of Hollywood. Form following function. A soured lesbian love affair is recounted through a one-sided e-mail correspondence, the authentic human tragedy of a congenitallly blind infant is diminished by the casting director mother's efforts to package it as pop entertainment, relationships exist solely through reception-fractured cell-phone conversations. It's the superficial aspect of human relations in the city of through-lines and sentimental sop that make the novel at once realistic and compelling. And unlike say a Kathy Acker (evoked constantly by every self-co-opted poseur as a pretentious badge of substance) where story is sacrificed to style Wagner keeps the reader engaged at every turn. It's the kind of novel you can open anywhere, anytime and come onto another splendid nugget. We'll be hearing more from this talent and I, personally, am looking forward to it.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best Hollywood novel since "Day of the Locust"
Review: Quite posibly the best Hollywood novel since Nathaniel West's "Day of the Locust" or Robert Stone's much under-rated "Children of Light." Wagner has as piercing an eye for character as Nora Ephron, a more rapier wit, and more bulls-eyed capture-effect for nailing the squirming, mercurial nature of the de-centered city. A compilation of vignettes and plotlines loosely interconnected by wry and cunning crossed trajectories of power, desire, carnal predation and patholgical ambition. All of it wired up in electrifying prose and some of the most bitchy and acidic and blackest-of-black humor since Celine. Wickedly funny at every turn. Really a minor (maybe not so minor) masterpiece of the Hollywood genre. Clinically well-observed, vibrant, stylistically ballsy. The critics seem to find it too dark, not plotty enough, bitter, cynical. But insider Wagner ("The Class Struggle in Beverly Hills", "Wild Palms", among others), despite his mainstreamed largely east-coast-imposed postures of populist postmodernist, is a good old fashioned master of realism. The Flaubert of Hollywood. Form following function. A soured lesbian love affair is recounted through a one-sided e-mail correspondence, the authentic human tragedy of a congenitallly blind infant is diminished by the casting director mother's efforts to package it as pop entertainment, relationships exist solely through reception-fractured cell-phone conversations. It's the superficial aspect of human relations in the city of through-lines and sentimental sop that make the novel at once realistic and compelling. And unlike say a Kathy Acker (evoked constantly by every self-co-opted poseur as a pretentious badge of substance) where story is sacrificed to style Wagner keeps the reader engaged at every turn. It's the kind of novel you can open anywhere, anytime and come onto another splendid nugget. We'll be hearing more from this talent and I, personally, am looking forward to it.
Rating: 
Summary: Thrilling, biting and smart...
Review: Somewhat epic-like in scope, I couldn't put this book down and was sad to see it end -- I was even having dreams about some of the mostly evil characters. Oftentimes a very bleak picture of contemporary Hollywood, but a fascinating book nonetheless. I love Bruce Wagner's vocabulary and way with words. Brilliant!
Rating:
Summary: Scary but worthy
Review: This is a page-turner, a reading in the car even though it makes you carsick book. Fascinating, Day of the Locust kinds of characters develop in divergent and converging arcs that will make your head spin. But caution to the casual reader: major themes are physical violence and Buddhist thought. The reader welcomes the voluminous Buddhist current as somewhat of a check againt the horrific violence. Give it a try if you can handle more than a bit of darkness, or are fascinated by LA. The popular culture references alone make the book a worthwhile read.
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