A profound and heart-wrenching work of spiritual storytelling from the internationally acclaimed author of Dead Stars Celebrated for his “up-to-the-nanosecond insider’s knowledge of the L.A. scene” (The Washington Post), Bruce Wagner takes his storytelling in a radically new direction with two linked novellas. In First Guru, a gay Buddhist living in Big Sur achieves enlightenment in the horrific aftermath of his child’s suicide. In Second Guru, Queenie, an aging wild child, returns to India to complete the spiritual journey of her youth. Told in ravaged, sensuous detail to a fictional Wagner by two strangers on opposite sides of the country, years apart from each other, these stories illuminate the random, chaotic nature of human suffering and the miraculous strength of the human spirit.

The Empty Chair: Two Novellas

Literature & Fiction

Wagner, Bruce

United States

Plume

“Dead Stars is the London Fields of Los Angeles, the Ulysses of TMZ culture—an immensely literate, fearsomely interior novel about people who are neither.”—Tom Bissell, GQ At age thirteen, Telma is famous as the world’s youngest breast cancer survivor until threatened with obscurity by a four-year-old who’s just undergone a mastectomy…. Reeyonna believes that auditioning for pregnant teenage porn will help fulfill her dream of befriending Kanye West…. Jackie, a photographer once celebrated for arty nudes of her young daughter, is working at a Sears Family Portrait boutique…. And Oscar-winning Michael Douglas searches for meaning while his wife, Catherine, guest-stars on Glee. Moving forward with the inexorable force of a tsunami, Dead Stars is Bruce Wagner’s most lavish and remarkable translation yet of the national zeitgeist: post-privacy porn culture, a Kardashianworld of rapid-cycling, disposable narrative where reality-show triumph is the new American narcotic.

Dead Stars: A Novel

Dramas & Plays

Denied success as a screenwriter, Bud Wiggins finds himself travelling through the seedier side of Hollywood, observing the world of absurdity, horrors, and mysteries. By the author of Wild Palms. Reprint.

Force Majeure

St Martins Pr

Provides the complete screenplay for the television program "Wild Palms"

Wild Palms/the Teleplay

Humor & Entertainment

Television

"[Wagner] slices open the self-satisfied bosom of Los Angeles yet again in his third novel, a sprawling family saga that trades the usual mush-mouthed sentimentalities for cascading shards of knife-edged vignettes. A masterful, modern-day fantasy of millionaires and madmen, fathers and sons, reality and dreams." --Kirkus Reviews Bruce Wagner’s I’m Losing You was hailed as "outrageous -- dead-on in every way" by Janet Maslin in The New York Times. New York magazine’s Walter Kirn called it "the year’s best book." And John Updike, in The New Yorker, wrote that Bruce Wagner "writes like a wizard." In I’ll Let You Go, Wagner offers a stunning novel that surpasses anything he’s done before. Twelve-year-old Toulouse "Tull" Trotter lives on his grandfather’s vast Bel-Air parkland estate with his mother, the beautiful, drug-addicted Katrina, a landscape artist who specializes in topiary laby-rinths. He spends most of his time with his young cousins Lucy, the girl detective, and Edward, a prodigy undaunted by the disfiguring effects of Apert Syndrome. One day, an impulsive revelation from Lucy sets in motion a chain of events that changes Tull -- and the Trotter family -- forever. Though the story unfolds in contemporary Los Angeles, the reader hears echoes of Proust and 1,001 Nights as Toulouse seeks his lost father, a woman finds her lost love, and a family of unimaginable wealth learns that its fate is tied to those of the orphan Amaryllis (who officially aspires to be a saint) and her protector, a courtly giant of a homeless schizophrenic -- both of them on the run from the law. Along a path shaded by murder and mysticism, we meet such unforgettable characters as Fitzsimmons, a deranged former social worker; the enterprising Monasterio family of servants (Candelaria, Epitacio, and Eulogio); "Someone-Help-Me", a streetwise devil; and Pullman, a seemingly ageless Great Dane. Complexly wrought, deeply moving, and scathingly ironic, I'll Let You Go dazzles the reader with the unique blend of gorgeous prose, acerbic wit, and deep emotion that are the specific province of Bruce Wagner.

I'll Let You Go: A Novel

Villard

Hapless, unsuccessful screenwriter Bud Wiggins makes his way along the margins of Hollywood, sustained by false hopes and memories of fleeting fame, in a portrait of the mysteries, horrors, and desperate anxieties of the film business

Humor & Satire

Random House]

Dead Stars is Bruce Wagner’s (I'm Losing You) most lavish and remarkable translation yet of the national zeitgeist: post-privacy porn culture, a Kardashianworld of rapid-cycling, disposable narrative where reality-show triumph is the new American narcotic.At age thirteen, Telma is famous as the world’s youngest breast cancer survivor until threatened with obscurity by a four-year-old Canadian who’s just undergone a mastectomy … Reeyonna believes that auditioning for pregnant-teen porn online will help fulfill her dream of befriending Jennifer Lawrence and Kanye West … Biggie, the neurologically impaired adolescent son of a billionaire, spends his days Google Map-searching his mother-who abandoned home and family for a new love … Jacquie, a photographer once celebrated for taking arty nudes of her young daughter, is broke and working at Sears Family Portrait Boutique … Tom-Tom, a singer/drug dealer thrown off the third season of American Idol for concocting a hard-luck story, is hell-bent on creating her own TV series in the Hollywood Hills, peopled by other reality-show losers … Jerzy, her sometime lover, is a speed-freak paparazzo who “specializes” in capturing images of dying movie and television stars … And Oscar-winning Michael Douglas searches for meaning in his time of remission. While his wife, Catherine, guest-stars on Glee, the actor plans a bold, artistic, go-for-broke move: to star in and direct a remake of Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz…
There is nothing quite like a Bruce Wagner novel. His prose is captivating and exuberant, and surprises with profound truths on spirituality, human nature, and redemption. Dead Stars moves forward with the inexorable force of a tsunami, sweeping everyone in its fateful path. With its mix of imaginary and real-life characters, it is certain to be the most challenging, knowing, and controversial book of the year.

Dead Stars

Literary

Blue Rider Press

I Met Someone is the story of Academy Award–winning actress Dusty Wilding, her wife Allegra, a long-lost daughter, and the unspeakable secret hidden beneath the glamour of their lavish, carefully calibrated celebrity life. After Allegra suffers a miscarriage, Dusty embarks on a search for the daughter she lost at age sixteen, and uncovers the answer to a question that has haunted her for decades. With masterful suspense, Bruce Wagner moves among the perspectives of his characters, revealing their individual trauma and the uncanny connections to one another’s past lives. I Met Someone plummets the reader down a rabbit hole of the human psyche, with Wagner’s remarkable insights into our collective obsession with great wealth and fame, and surprises with unimaginable plot turns and unexpected fate. Alternately tender, shocking, and poetic, this is Wagner’s most captivating and affecting novel yet.

I Met Someone

Composed of two companion novellas, The Empty Chair is a profound, heart-wrenching piece of spiritual storytelling from Bruce Wagner, the internationally acclaimed author of such novels as Dead Stars, I’m Losing You and Force Majeure. In First Guru, a fictional Wagner narrates the tale of a Buddhist living in Big Sur, who achieves enlightenment in the horrific aftermath of his child’s suicide. In Second Guru, Queenie, an aging wild child, returns to India to complete the spiritual journey of her youth. Told in ravaged, sensuous detail to the author-narrator by two strangers on opposite sides of the country, years apart from each other, both stories illuminate the random, chaotic nature of human suffering and the miraculous strength of the human spirit. A deeply affecting and meditative reading experience, The Empty Chair is an exquisitely rendered, thought-provoking, and humbling new work.

A novel set in Hollywood brings together a offbeat crew that includes porn stars in love, scheming dermatologists, celebrity chore-whores, masseurs, traitorous shrinks, and sightless children, among others, in a glittering world of decadence. Reprint.

I'm Losing You

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Books by Wagner, Bruce

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

The Empty Chair: Two Novellas

Dead Stars: A Novel

Force Majeure

Wild Palms/the Teleplay

I'll Let You Go: A Novel

Force Majeure

Dead Stars

I Met Someone

The Empty Chair: Two Novellas

I'm Losing You