October 29, 2004 -- We recently finished our galley of Bruce Wagner's "The Chrysanthemum Palace," due out in February from Simon & Shuster.
Bruce has long been saddled with the tag of "literary successor" (or
what-have-you) to Nathanael West. While flattering, this can also
become burdensome. So while the debt should be acknowledged, we think
it's time to give Wagner his due - at this point, he has surpassed West.
After all, brilliant as they may be, West only wrote two short
Hollywood novels, "Miss Lonelyhearts" and "Day of the Locust". And
though he might have gone on to greater achievements, he was killed in an
automobile accident at the age of 37.
"The Chrysanthemum Palace" is Wagner's fifth, and it's genius. He
published "Force Majeure" in 1991, followed by the "Cellular Trilogy":
"I'm Losing You", "Still Holding" and "I'll Let You Go". There's also
his hilarious 1989 movie "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills" and his short-lived Oliver Stone-directed TV series, "Wild Palms",
which set the benchmark for mind-bending television and proved to be
too much for TV-watching morons to handle. "Wild Palms" was also a
comic strip in the back of Details for a while when Jimmy Truman ran
the show.
There's no telling how far Wagner will go, but he's got some movie
projects in the pipeline, which we bet will make him a household name.
