Spontaneous: A Novel

When Auntie Ned spontaneously combusts, she leaves behind a pair of smoking orthopedic shoes and a house that she wills to her best friend's daughters. Amy and Gwendolyn are sisters--closer than close--who move into Ned's bungalow and inherit her legacies: a closet full of housedresses, a freezer full of meat, and the passionate flames of unrequited desire. Amy's appetites--for meat, for sex, for getting her way--are ferocious, while Gwendolyn longs for a more normal existence but can't refuse her big sister anything at all. Not the intrusion of Dr. Minor, Professor of Pyrophenomena, who has come to investigate Auntie Ned's death. And not the presence in their bed of Roosevelt, a troubled carpenter whose steamy entanglement with the sisters will either save them all or create a situation that's bound to combust.

Literature & Fiction

Wagman, Diana

United States

L.A. Weekly Books

When Auntie Ned spontaneously combusts, she leaves behind a pair of smoking orthopedic shoes and house that she will to her best friend's daughters. Amy and Gwendolyn are sisters-- closer than close--who move into the bungalow and inherit Ned's legacies: a closet full of housedresses, a freezer full of meat, and the passionate flames of unrequited desire.Amy's appetites--for meat, for sex, for getting her way--are ferocious, while Gwendolyn longs for a more normal existence but can't refuse her big sister anything at all. Wagman's plot is as combustible as Auntie Ned, adding a troubled carpenter whose steamy entanglement with the sisters will either save them all or set spark to a situation that's bound to explode.

From an award-winning writing, this is a darkly funny, cinematic page-turner that explores the line between obsession and love. Bump is the story of a trio of motorists and one policeman linked together by a tangled, life-altering web of coincidence in the immediate aftermath of a three-car pileup in Los Angeles. Dorothy is to be married in less than 24 hours but can't shake the memory of her ex-boyfriend. Madelyn is a married mother of two who falls in love with a double-amputee she met through a suicide hotline. Leo is a golden-eyed Latino who speaks no Spanish and has come to L.A. to reclaim his girlfriend. Ray is a suicide-obsessed Beverly Hills cop whose wife has just left him. Diana Wagman's fast-paced and vividly cinematic narrative presents an engrossing tableau of synchronicity steered by obsession and alienation. Beautifully written and deeply affecting, Bump is hard to put down, and hard to forget. "Diana Wagman is wicked fun, and ... Bump shows off her talents to a T. Witty, perceptive and compulsively readable."—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

Bump

Carroll & Graf Pub.

A black comedy explores the line separating love and obsession in a story that begins in the aftermath of a three-car pileup in Los Angeles and intertwines the lives of a trio of motorists and a police officer. Reprint.

Wanted: Woman to talk to. Three nights a week. Three hundred dollars a night. 
 Skin Deep is about the unusual young woman who answers this ad. Martha Ward is twenty -eight, an ex-topless waitress, and part-time mother of an eight-year-old. She drives to Malibu for her new job and discovers she must dress entirely in blue --body, hand, hair, even face, completely covered-- and talk to a man named Dr. Hamilton. He wants to talk about beauty. 
This startling novel depicts the compelling and poignant story of a young woman's obsession with her looks. Defining herself by the reactions of the various and unforgettable men in her life --her father who speaks only in aphorisms and platitudes, her pyromanical stepfather, her dramatically different boyfriend-- Martha becomes more an more absorbed in the demands of being physically attractive. Through their eyes, she begins to see her life of solitude and independence as one of lonliness and desperate routine. 
Only in her nightly sessions with the remarkable but deeply disturbed Dr. Hamilton can she gain control of her own point of view. Only with the one man who cannot see her, can she learn to see herself. 
Skin Deep is Diana Wagman's first novel. She writes with deep feeling and with an accurate tough. As she examines Martha Ward's compulsion to be beautiful, she strikes a nerv so responsive that many readers will wince. Wagman's intense but sensitive exploration of Marth Ward's fixation with outward beauty focuses on a painful subject that affects many women. 
Diana Wagman is a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles. For her work she has received the Mary Pickford Award and the Silver Eagle Award from the Chicago Film Festival.

Skin Deep

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI

Electric Literature is just that, electric - five great stories that grab you. Our Summer 2009 debut anthology features the first published excerpt from Michael Cunningham's forthcoming novel. This issue also features new fiction by some of America's most innovative and important contemporary writers, including Jim Shepard, T Cooper, Lydia Millet, and Diana Wagman. These stories are charged with wit, incident, and emotional gravity right from the first sentence.

Electric Literature: #1

CUNNINGHAM, Michael

Millet, Lydia

SHEPARD, Jim

Cooper, T.

Literary

Electric Literature

A haunting novel that explores the human compulsion to be beautiful

Critically acclaimed author Diana Wagman brings us the suspenseful and emotionally exhilarating story of a woman facing death today, as well as thirty years ago. Fiona's marriage is crumbling, and she has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Caught up in a wave of memories as she faces her own mortality, Fiona recalls the previous times in her life when she nearly died, including a fateful boat trip with her former boyfriend, Luc. Fleeing her struggling marriage, Fiona rendezvous with Luc. In the process, she relives the harrowing boat trip from three decades earlier, which permanently altered her life. Now that Fiona desperately needs Luc to save her, will he be the man she remembers? Or will she discover heartbreak again? An adventurous and stirring tale inspired by Diana Wagman's own experience at sea, Life #6 explores the hope and folly of youth, how we react when we're pushed to the brink, the regrets of love lost, and the many ways we die and are renewed throughout our lives.

Life #6

Ig Publishing

Extraordinary October

October is an ordinary girl. From her plain looks to her average grades, there seems to be nothing special about her. Then, three days before her eighteenth birthday, she develops a strange itch that won’t go away, and her life is turned upside down. Suddenly, she can hear dogs talk, make crows fly, and two new and very handsome boys at school are vying for her affections. After she starts transplanting” herself through solid rock, October learns that she is not ordinary at all, but the daughter of a troll princess and a fairy prince, and a pawn in a deadly war between the trolls and the fairies. Now October will have to use all of her growing powers to save her family, and stop a mysterious evil that threatens to destroy the fairy world. In the fantastical vein of authors such as Julie Kagawa and Holly Black, Extraordinary October takes us on a magical journey from the streets of Los Angeles to the beautiful and mythical underground fairy kingdom.

Children's Books

Science Fiction & Fantasy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wagman, Diana. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Wagman, Diana

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wagman, Diana. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Spontaneous: A Novel

Spontaneous: A Novel

Bump

Bump

Skin Deep

Electric Literature: #1

Skin Deep

Life #6

Life #6

Extraordinary October