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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In his Cellular Trilogy, novelist Wagner gleefully excoriated Hollywood vanity and pretense. Obviously his hunger for butchering Tinseltown's sacred cows was not sated because in his latest work he continues to carve them up. His uproarious new satire focuses on a trio of psychologically and emotionally fragile actors, each of whom carries the added baggage of a very famous and successful parent. The story is told from the perspective of Bertie Krohn, the soon-to-be-middle-aged son of the "creator-producer in perpetua of TV's longest-running syndicated space opera, Starwatch: The Navigators." After several attempts to make it on his own artistically, Bertie succumbs to nepotism and joins the cast of Starwatch. The book revolves around his interactions with two other actors who are appearing on the series. The first is Clea Fremantle, his childhood crush and the daughter of a "legendary film actress." The other is Thad Michelet, the 50-something son of a universally revered, award-winning author. Much as Jeffrey Frank did in his excellent novel The Columnist, Wagner crafts a savage meditation on contemporary self-involvement—his characters are vacuous, name-dropping black holes of self-absorption. The writing itself is wonderfully bad, as Bertie the hapless hack attempts to chronicle his melodramatic tale with 25-cent words ("commodious," "numinous," etc.) and wickedly overwrought metaphors ("Thad's hungry eyes surveyed the topography of human detail unfolding before him like a jet devouring a runway during takeoff"). It's a short, sharp book that puts a dagger right in the heart of Hollywood.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
On the set of a schlocky TV space opera called "Starwatch," three children of wealthy and talented parents struggle to attain success of their own. The narrator, Bertie, is the son of the show's creator, and his current acting job is the nadir in a career of ever-shrinking ambition. His companions are Clea, the pill-popping daughter of a sexy actress who died young, and Thad, who is plagued by a personality disorder and the outsized legend of his father, an award-winning author. Suffering in the shadow of parental fame is a familiar trope of tabloid pathos, and the parents here are predictably malevolent. This slender novel lacks the kaleidoscopic frenzy of Wagner's "cell-phone" trilogy, and its more limited range gives his relentlessly up-to-the-minute pop-trivia references a somewhat airless feel. Still, his ability to eviscerate the absurdities of Hollywood, while occasionally hinting at its basic humanity, remains undiminished.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
See all Editorial Reviews
Starred Review. In his Cellular Trilogy, novelist Wagner gleefully excoriated Hollywood vanity and pretense. Obviously his hunger for butchering Tinseltown's sacred cows was not sated because in his latest work he continues to carve them up. His uproarious new satire focuses on a trio of psychologically and emotionally fragile actors, each of whom carries the added baggage of a very famous and successful parent. The story is told from the perspective of Bertie Krohn, the soon-to-be-middle-aged son of the "creator-producer in perpetua of TV's longest-running syndicated space opera, Starwatch: The Navigators." After several attempts to make it on his own artistically, Bertie succumbs to nepotism and joins the cast of Starwatch. The book revolves around his interactions with two other actors who are appearing on the series. The first is Clea Fremantle, his childhood crush and the daughter of a "legendary film actress." The other is Thad Michelet, the 50-something son of a universally revered, award-winning author. Much as Jeffrey Frank did in his excellent novel The Columnist, Wagner crafts a savage meditation on contemporary self-involvement—his characters are vacuous, name-dropping black holes of self-absorption. The writing itself is wonderfully bad, as Bertie the hapless hack attempts to chronicle his melodramatic tale with 25-cent words ("commodious," "numinous," etc.) and wickedly overwrought metaphors ("Thad's hungry eyes surveyed the topography of human detail unfolding before him like a jet devouring a runway during takeoff"). It's a short, sharp book that puts a dagger right in the heart of Hollywood.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
On the set of a schlocky TV space opera called "Starwatch," three children of wealthy and talented parents struggle to attain success of their own. The narrator, Bertie, is the son of the show's creator, and his current acting job is the nadir in a career of ever-shrinking ambition. His companions are Clea, the pill-popping daughter of a sexy actress who died young, and Thad, who is plagued by a personality disorder and the outsized legend of his father, an award-winning author. Suffering in the shadow of parental fame is a familiar trope of tabloid pathos, and the parents here are predictably malevolent. This slender novel lacks the kaleidoscopic frenzy of Wagner's "cell-phone" trilogy, and its more limited range gives his relentlessly up-to-the-minute pop-trivia references a somewhat airless feel. Still, his ability to eviscerate the absurdities of Hollywood, while occasionally hinting at its basic humanity, remains undiminished.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book Citations: This book cites 4 books | 4 books that cite this book Explore: Citations | Concordance | Text Stats Key Phrases - CAPs: Jack Michelet, The Soft Sea Horse, Black Jack, Nick Sultan, New York (more) Browse Sample Pages: Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover | Surprise Me! |