Still Holding

It's quite a feat for an author to manage to be both hilarious and disturbing, but my hat is off to Bruce Wagner for doing all that and more. I stumbled upon this novel by accident and couldn't put it down. Like many of us, the author seems to have a love-hate relationship with the entertainment industry, so this book is at once a scathing indictment and a mournful love sonnet to Hollywood. I can't imagine how he wrote something so complex and wonderfully affecting, but this book both made me laugh and really broke my heart. Wagner acknowledges and appreciates our fascination with Hollywood while at the same time really condemning it in a number of shocking ways that will really make you think. A wonderful read by a really gifted writer.

Since I've also trudged across this country by Amtrak, because of my own fear of flying, like a character in this terrific novel, I followed a friend's recommendation and bought this splendid and funny novel. What a treat. It examines Hollywood like a strong lethal and very funny (you laugh out loud) magnifying glass - following wonderful characters - including the self-absorbed life of a wannabe actress, who is a Drew Barrymore look-alike. It is all about the people who spend their lives scratching on the screen door of show business. Blocked like flies from ever getting close to the glamour of Hollywood they long for, we laugh and cry as they make their quest to find nirvana in this very nasty place. These fringe people are dealt with by Wagner with wry social commentary. This is a must read and I will read it again, when like poor Lisanne, I make my cross country journey east curled up in my sleeping car bedroom with this great book. Bravo to Mr. Wagner.

Like other reviewers here, I too felt disappointed by what I saw as the incongruity between the "hype" around this book and what it was delivering to me when I opened it. But then, some time around page 75 or so, the novel really began to coalesce and take off to a different level. It stopped sounding like Bret Easton Ellis and started to read like James Ellroy crossed with Gary Indiana by way of Joan Didion (how's that for a pedigree?). The flippant style and throwaway cast of celebrity walkons were hard to stomach until I caught on to what I think Wagner is doing here (i.e. demonstrating that in Los Angeles--or "Hollywood," rather--stars function sort of like geographic markers and place-holders, material coordinates providing the semblance of an orientation in a basically unstable, highly distorted, and unnatural social ecology). The book's major themes--hyperreality, celebrity obsession, mirroring and look-a-likes, the flawed pursuit of meaning or power through New Age mysticism and Eastern spirituality--resonated a great deal with Wagner's brilliant Wild Palms, a pop-cult phenomenon that still haunts me many years after its release. While this narrative may feel cynical and while some of its pages (particularly the sex scenes) are downright repulsive, the book is, quite simply, gripping and substantive even when it is hardest to take.

This book is wildly energetic, hilarious, disarmingly harsh, but above all heartbreaking and beautiful. For those who loved "I'm Losing You," Bruge Wagner once again delivers everything great about that book, this time with a much stronger, more satisfying story. "Still Holding" is a fantastic read. As with all great novels, I found myself torn reading this book-- I wanted to race through it and devour the crazy story, but at the same time slow down and re-read the gorgeous writing. Nobody does cruelty with a light touch better than Wagner. I highly recommend this book to anyone who not only wants to learn about the inner workings of Hollywood but also wants to see one of our great writers working at his peak.

What a performance! What a performer! The performance is Bruce Wagner's latest in his trilogy, and it's called STILL HOLDING; the performer is Bruce Wagner, a writer who at times seems to write with a chainsaw--as biting a satire of Hollywood, from stars to hangers on, look-alikes, delirious fans, as any other written; and yet also touching, in a tough way--Wagner is always tough and sweet at the same time; he clearly likes some of his wacky characters, including the Drew Barrymore look-alike, and--get this, Drew Barrymore herself, a neat trick Wagner pulls off. He also understands the fading star Kit, who turns to Yoga, whose fate it is to share it with a character he plays. The prose is furious--at times fragments, as if Wagner can't wait to move on--and neither can the reader, held captive from the first page. Comparison's? Cross the sharp-eyed but more delicate Waugh with Nathaniel West's even harsher visiton and you got it. Which is not to say that Wagner is not in a class by himself, an original writer who turns the Hollywood he clearly knows so well into his own canvas. Terrific novel, terrific writer.