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A review by gotterdammerung
Dead Stars by Bruce Wagner
4.0
A very addictive read. I bought it on Wednesday from the Last Bookstore in LA, and finished it on Friday night.
The satirical critique of celebrity culture is only skin-deep - where most obtuse critics get stuck on - because Wagner portrays his characters with enough humanity that makes them more sympathetic than mere caricatures. Sometimes I felt the writer was also criticizing himself or a work he could have written in the past particularly in the bitter gall of the Hollywood writer, Bud, perhaps a self-portrait of sorts. The early section on the Honeyshots! is a classic in its own right. Plus the fantastic Helmut Newton rant is the very epitome of modern art as pure unadulterated cynicism.
Easily Wagner's best work.
The satirical critique of celebrity culture is only skin-deep - where most obtuse critics get stuck on - because Wagner portrays his characters with enough humanity that makes them more sympathetic than mere caricatures. Sometimes I felt the writer was also criticizing himself or a work he could have written in the past particularly in the bitter gall of the Hollywood writer, Bud, perhaps a self-portrait of sorts. The early section on the Honeyshots! is a classic in its own right. Plus the fantastic Helmut Newton rant is the very epitome of modern art as pure unadulterated cynicism.
Easily Wagner's best work.