Dead Stars

"Dead Stars "is Bruce Wagner's most lavish and remarkable translation yet of the national Zeitgeist: post-privacy porn culture, a KardashianWorld of rapid-cycling, disposable narrative where reality-show triumph is the new American narcotic.

At age thirteen, Telma is famous as the world's youngest breast cancer survivor until threatened with obscurity by a four-year-old Canadian who's just undergone a mastectomy. . . . Reeyonna believes that auditioning for pregnant teen porn online will help fulfill her dream of befriending Jennifer Lawrence and Kanye West. . . . Biggie, the neurologically impaired adolescent son of a billionaire, spends his days Google-Map-searching his mother--who abandoned home and family for a new love. . . . Jacquie, a photographer once celebrated for taking arty nudes of her young daughter, is broke and working at a Sears Family Portrait Boutique. . . . Tom-Tom, a singer/drug dealer thrown off the third season of "American Idol "for concocting a hard-luck story, is hell-bent on creating her own TV series in the Hollywood Hills, peopled by other reality-show losers. . . . Jerzy, her sometime lover, is a speed-freak paparazzo who "specializes" in capturing images of dying movie and television stars. . . . Oscar-winning Michael Douglas searches for meaning in his time of remission. While his wife, Catherine, guest-stars on "Glee, "the actor plans a bold, artistic, go-for-broke move, from the Peninsula Hotel: to star in and direct a remake of Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz."" . . .

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There is nothing quite like a Bruce Wagner novel--his prose is captivating and exuberant, and surprises with profound truths on spirituality, human nature, and redemption. "Dead Stars" moves forward with the inexorable force of a tsunami, sweeping up everyone in its fateful path. With its mix of imaginary and real-life characters, it is certain to be the most challenging, knowing, and controversial book of the year.