Synopses & Reviews
The New York Times Book Review once compared Bruce Wagner's prose to "some unholy combination of Rick Moody, Anthony Lane and the
Page Six gossip columnist Richard Johnson." Now this quintessential L.A. storyteller spins his most ambitious novel to date: a philosophical, heartbreaking tale of three friends lost in a California dream gone mad.
The Chrysanthemum Palace introduces Bertie Krohn, the only child of Perry Krohn, creator of TV's longest running space opera, Starwatch: The Navigators (which counts Jennifer Aniston and Donald Rumsfeld among its obsessed fans). Bertie recounts the story of the last months in the lives of his two companions: Thad Michelet, author, actor, and son of a literary titan; and Clea Freemantle, emotionally fragile daughter of a legendary movie star, long dead. Scions of entertainment greatness, they call themselves the Three Musketeers; between them, as Bertie says, "there was more than enough material to bring psychoanalysis back into vogue." As the incestuous clique attempts to scale the peaks claimed by their sacred yet monstrous parents over a two-week filming of a Starwatch episode in which they costar, Bertie scrupulously chronicles their highs and lows as well as their futile struggles against the ravenous, narcissistic, and addicted Hollywood that claims them.
Convulsive and poignant, The Chrysanthemum Palace is a tragic tale of friendship and fate writ large a tour de force by a major writer whose narrative delivers devastating emotional impact.
Review
"Although Wagner is smart enough to keep the enjoyably soapy story short, the inevitable high-drama conclusion does prompt some longing for the apocalyptic surrealism of his earlier fiction. Smart, high-gloss slur of fame, drugs and the fateful weight of family." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Few writers capture the egregious emptiness of Hollywood as well as Wagner....Though his plot is often convoluted and laborious, Wagner's satire is at once biting and broad based, his wit both razor sharp and slyly subtle." Booklist
Review
"The Chrysanthemum Palace has elements of trash and satire, but it happily avoids being too much of either. And it isn't needlessly elegiac, either. This is a very up to the moment Hollywood, where people pitch shows to HBO about themselves and IMDB each other, where Sharon Stone can make a cameo. But for all the name dropping and narcissism, all the pill popping and chaining of Diet Cokes, Wagner evokes his la-la land with a curiously human touch." Anna Godbersen, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)
Synopsis
This quintessential L.A. storyteller spins his most ambitious novel to date: a philosophical, heartbreaking tale of three friends lost in a California dream gone mad.
About the Author
Bruce Wagner is the author of Force Majeure, I'm Losing You, I'll Let You Go, which was nominated for the PEN USA fiction award, and Still Holding.