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Stomach-turning, sick-making, rancid, repugnant, repellent, squalid, odious, fetid, disgusting — there is a thesaurus full of terms to describe the contents of Bruce Wagner’s willfully offensive new novel, “Dead Stars.” Photos of dead babies; paparazzi in search of crotch shots of child celebrities; Internet posts celebrating an actor’s getting cancer; violent, graphic group sex; parents pimping out their children — one repulsive scene follows another in these pages, drowning the reader in a more- than-600-page-deep cesspool.
Mr. Wagner’s portraits of hustlers, hucksters, predators, celebrities, celebrity wannabes, reality TV stars, drug dealers and every sort of show business parasite imaginable are meant to create a lurid, collagelike picture of Hollywood as a sewer of depravity, narcissism and greed, and to use that Hollywood as a metaphor for an America obsessed with fame, addicted to voyeurism and circling the spiritual drain. In this 21st-century U.S. of A., girls want to grow up to be like the Kardashian sisters; pornographers aspire to Gagosian gallery shows; and boldface and designer brand names from the tabloids have become the cultural lingua franca. Self-promotion is the order of the day.
-- Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times
Mr. Kakutani ends up panning the book for being rather unredemptive, but I think it's safe to say that this is one for the 'guilty pleasures' list, maybe after I finish Marcus Van Heller's classic "Rape".
Mr. Wagner’s portraits of hustlers, hucksters, predators, celebrities, celebrity wannabes, reality TV stars, drug dealers and every sort of show business parasite imaginable are meant to create a lurid, collagelike picture of Hollywood as a sewer of depravity, narcissism and greed, and to use that Hollywood as a metaphor for an America obsessed with fame, addicted to voyeurism and circling the spiritual drain. In this 21st-century U.S. of A., girls want to grow up to be like the Kardashian sisters; pornographers aspire to Gagosian gallery shows; and boldface and designer brand names from the tabloids have become the cultural lingua franca. Self-promotion is the order of the day.
-- Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times
Mr. Kakutani ends up panning the book for being rather unredemptive, but I think it's safe to say that this is one for the 'guilty pleasures' list, maybe after I finish Marcus Van Heller's classic "Rape".
