-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Deeply compassionate and violently irreverent, Memorial is a testament to faith and forgiveness, and a luminous tribute to spirituality in the twenty-first century. With an unflagging eye on a society ruptured by natural and unnatural disaster, and an insatiable love for humanity, Wagner delivers a masterpiece.
"Starred review. While his fans will find all the demonic intelligence and fun they expect, Memorial might also attract a new cohort of readers who want more than all-dark-comedy-all-the-time." - PW.
"Wagner is plugged into all the latest trends, but his vision is simply too Los Angeles-centric to succeed outside the city limits. Mainly for California collections." - Library Journal.
"Brilliant, entropic fiction that sometimes spins off into its own narcissistic void." - Kirkus.
This information about Memorial was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
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.
If you liked Memorial, try these:
by Carvell Wallace
Published 2025
A transformative memoir that reimagines the conventions of love and posits a radical vision for healing.
by Sarah Leavitt
Published 2024
A poignant graphic memoir about the power of art to transform and heal after the death of a loved one.
by Steve Sem-Sandberg
Published 2017
Passionately serious, meticulously researched, and deeply profound, this extraordinary and dramatic novel bears witness to oppression and injustice, and offers invaluable and necessary insight into an intolerable chapter in Austria's past.
L.A. Women by Ella Berman
Two ambitious writers in 1960s LA face betrayal when one writes a novel based on the other's life.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
