Dead Stars: A Novel

Bruce Wagner

Aug 2012 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

“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.

Ratings and reviews

A blazing indictment of today's world of wild wannabes burning the candle at both ends online and off. Wagner's rich and playful prose makes this journey into the wasteland of the human spirit a parade of surprises that shock without numbing; it's the book *I'm Losing You* should have been. The near-superhuman zenlike revelatory power of poetry redeems the jaw-dropping "sorry to tell you your worst fears were true" honesty of this portrait of the zombie abattoir of fame-seekers taking hope and inspiration from the secret desperation and failures of Hollywood's interchangeable kings and queens. I am speaking in euphemism. Current scandals can be understood as the tip of the iceberg in Bruce Wagner's novels, and in Dead Stars the fearless Mr. Wagner can take you on a very fast, very scary ride, if you have the nerve to go with him. He has created something that feels entirely new, and adult readers of all sorts need to give this early 21st century masterpiece a try. It has the best ending of any BW book, and that ending just gave me one more reason not to like a creepy grinning celebrity I shan't name. Hollywood is a limbo and a hell of demons loved the world over. Your sacred cows may just be gristle after you see the sights in Wagnerland.

About the author

Bruce Wagner is a screenwriter and the author of several books, including I'm Losing You, Memorial, The Chrysanthemum Palace, and Still Holding. He lives in Los Angeles.