Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2012
656 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Dead Stars is Bruce Wagner's most lavish and remarkable translation yet of the national Zeitgeist: post-privacy porn culture, a Kardashian World 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 a 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. . . . 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, from the Peninsula Hotel: 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 up 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.
"Written in hyper-hilarious, brilliant prose, the book renders an obsessive pop-culture nightmare of surprising realism and light, illuminating the meanest corners of its characters' - and our culture's - desperation." - Publishers Weekly
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bruce Wagner was born March 15, 1954. In his twenties, Wagner began writing articles for magazines, and writing scripts. His first book, Force Majeure: The Bud Wiggins Stories was self published; the book was well reviewed and led to a publishing deal with Random House.
He has written essays and op-ed pieces for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Art Forum and Vanity Fair, in addition to multiple books. His novel Still Holding was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and The Chrysanthemum Palace was a PEN/Faulkner finalist in 2006
Wagner married actress Rebecca De Mornay in 1986, and the couple divorced in 1990. He married Laura Peterson in 2009, and currently lives in Los Angeles.
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