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Still Holding
Bruce Wagner has been hailed for his powerful prose, his Swiftian satire, and the scalpel-sharp wit that has, in each of his novels, dissected and sometimes disemboweled Hollywood excess.
In his most ambitious book to date, Still Holding, Wagner immerses readers in post-September 11 Hollywood, revealing as much rabid ambition, rampant narcissism, and unchecked mental illness as ever. He infiltrates the gilded life of a superstar actor/sex symbol/practicing Buddhist, the compromised world of a young actress whose big break comes when she's hired to play a corpse on Six Feet Under, and the strange parallel universe of look-alikes -- an entire industry in which struggling actors are hired out for parties and conventions to play their famous counterparts. Alternately hilarious and heartfelt, ferocious and empathetic, Still Holding is Bruce Wagner's most expertly calibrated work.
In his most ambitious book to date, Still Holding, Wagner immerses readers in post-September 11 Hollywood, revealing as much rabid ambition, rampant narcissism, and unchecked mental illness as ever. He infiltrates the gilded life of a superstar actor/sex symbol/practicing Buddhist, the compromised world of a young actress whose big break comes when she's hired to play a corpse on Six Feet Under, and the strange parallel universe of look-alikes -- an entire industry in which struggling actors are hired out for parties and conventions to play their famous counterparts. Alternately hilarious and heartfelt, ferocious and empathetic, Still Holding is Bruce Wagner's most expertly calibrated work.
- GenresFiction
349 pages, Paperback
First published November 4, 2003
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About the author
Bruce Wagner
34 books174 followersBruce Wagner is the author of The Chrysanthemum Palace (a PEN Faulkner fiction award finalist); Still Holding; I'll Let You Go (a PEN USA fiction award finalist); I'm Losing You; and Force Majeure. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 15, 2023
The flyleaf is precisely right. Bruce Wagner becomes, for the span of this novel, the twenty-first century Nathanael West. And, as those who've had the opportunity to read West's classic (The Day of the Locust) are more than well aware, this is not necessarily a good thing.
What we have here is another grueling examination of all the thoughtless cruelties to be found in the modern-day entertainment industry, as experienced by a crew of ironically ignorant characters whose intentions alone are fit to grant them a short bus ride to the nearest mental institution. Wagner circles three in the sand mandala of his Buddhist preoccupation, while his reader (in this case yours truly) tenderly strokes her worry stone as she counts the minutes she has left to wait before this entire tableau is swept from the universe completely. Until then we must endure Becca, a Drew Barrymore lookalike, who drifts into lewd and marginally psychotic situations between acting classes. And Lisanne, a pregnant executive assistant-turned-stalker, whose obsessions grow so increasingly unmanageable that she takes up vigorous toilet cleaning in an attempt to draw some lines. And then there's Kitchener Lightfoot, young movie superstar and renowned disciple of several Buddhist disciplines, who trips quite hard over the circumstantial wire into the worst of celebrity sufferings. Names are dropped by the dozens, and snazzy references made (Wagner's walked these streets, no doubt about it), yet something this close to biting satire requires a bit of wisdom in the grain. And that's where the West-ern path diverges, because there's quite an absence of it here.
Warnings aplenty: The sex is graphic, animals are victims, and, for the love of all that's holy, if you have the slightest fear of flying? Toss some garlic down the library aisle and run for all you're worth.
What we have here is another grueling examination of all the thoughtless cruelties to be found in the modern-day entertainment industry, as experienced by a crew of ironically ignorant characters whose intentions alone are fit to grant them a short bus ride to the nearest mental institution. Wagner circles three in the sand mandala of his Buddhist preoccupation, while his reader (in this case yours truly) tenderly strokes her worry stone as she counts the minutes she has left to wait before this entire tableau is swept from the universe completely. Until then we must endure Becca, a Drew Barrymore lookalike, who drifts into lewd and marginally psychotic situations between acting classes. And Lisanne, a pregnant executive assistant-turned-stalker, whose obsessions grow so increasingly unmanageable that she takes up vigorous toilet cleaning in an attempt to draw some lines. And then there's Kitchener Lightfoot, young movie superstar and renowned disciple of several Buddhist disciplines, who trips quite hard over the circumstantial wire into the worst of celebrity sufferings. Names are dropped by the dozens, and snazzy references made (Wagner's walked these streets, no doubt about it), yet something this close to biting satire requires a bit of wisdom in the grain. And that's where the West-ern path diverges, because there's quite an absence of it here.
Warnings aplenty: The sex is graphic, animals are victims, and, for the love of all that's holy, if you have the slightest fear of flying? Toss some garlic down the library aisle and run for all you're worth.
September 3, 2016
This book starts off as a humorous portrait of the silliness of living in Hollywood, either as a famous movie star, an aspiring actress, or an obsessed fan. I found it difficult to follow in the beginning because the focus switches quickly and often, and there are a lot of characters and relationships to keep track of. It often reads more like a movie script than a novel - which makes sense, since Wagner has written and directed films - and would probably function well as a movie.
But once I got used to the writing style - the quick shifts of viewpoint, the occasional stream of consciousness - I enjoyed the book. The plot weaves all over the place, and it's difficult to predict what is going to happen to any of the characters. Things eventually get dark (very dark), and the sex, violence, and general obscenity sometimes felt gratuitous, particularly in the case of Kit's dad. Most of it was believable, since the story is largely about people being damaged past a point of no return; my main complaint was that Burke's recurring litany of slurs felt over-the-top and unnecessary.
Still, the book explores some interesting topics, one of the most interesting being the potential danger involved in pursuing happiness. An entertaining read; just be patient with the writing style, and keep a running glossary of named characters if your memory is as bad as mine.
But once I got used to the writing style - the quick shifts of viewpoint, the occasional stream of consciousness - I enjoyed the book. The plot weaves all over the place, and it's difficult to predict what is going to happen to any of the characters. Things eventually get dark (very dark), and the sex, violence, and general obscenity sometimes felt gratuitous, particularly in the case of Kit's dad. Most of it was believable, since the story is largely about people being damaged past a point of no return; my main complaint was that Burke's recurring litany of slurs felt over-the-top and unnecessary.
Still, the book explores some interesting topics, one of the most interesting being the potential danger involved in pursuing happiness. An entertaining read; just be patient with the writing style, and keep a running glossary of named characters if your memory is as bad as mine.
August 5, 2024
Loved the first half, I fell apart completely in the middle and nearly gave up (but no DNF wohoo), the final 50 pages gave me a little boost and bumped my rating up to 3.
Desperately need to read something written by a woman now to realign myself!
Desperately need to read something written by a woman now to realign myself!
May 1, 2018
A sharp, hyper-real look at the city of angels.
December 20, 2022
A fun romp through early 2000s Hollywood, pre-social media and smartphones, but still full of all the hubris and vapidity that's been part of the scene for generations. Wagner does a good job at humanizing some characters and dehumanizing others, and at creating an ample cast of three-dimensional (insofar as Hollywood allows that to be possible) fictional characters and inserting them deftly into a "real" Hollywood in which known stars appear. The book surveys and skewers all aspects of La La Land and the worlds it creates - petty jealousy and opportunism, self-centeredness as religion, pseudo-Buddhism, extreme fascination with lookalikes, pervy old men, pervy young men, and the delicious, public cycle of "fall and redemption", and so on.
As an aside, this book struck me as an odd, unintentional companion piece to Bret Easton Ellis's "Glamorama", which was written a few years earlier (or, just on the other side of 9/11, which features very prominently as a leitmotiv in "Still Holding") and very much in the same fictional headspace, albeit minus the international terrorism ring...
As an aside, this book struck me as an odd, unintentional companion piece to Bret Easton Ellis's "Glamorama", which was written a few years earlier (or, just on the other side of 9/11, which features very prominently as a leitmotiv in "Still Holding") and very much in the same fictional headspace, albeit minus the international terrorism ring...
October 28, 2019
Aucun intérêt.
November 12, 2021
I was enjoying it for a bit, but it lost me after “ I SLAUGHTERED the pug.” I read the last 50 pages with my jaw dropped.
March 8, 2023
skewering Hollywood, with healthy doses of sex, violence and buddhism.
April 9, 2023
one of the more disturbing books i've ever read
May 19, 2010
There's something refreshingly unforgiving in Bruce Wagner's lacerating Hollywood satire; those readers who've had a love/hate relationship with the movie business, an attraction-repulsion dynamic that loves movies themselves and yet is sickened by the business culture that makes it possible, will find the nasty laughs here telling, truthful, and an overdue joy to read. Anyone else who desire something redeeming to emerge from all the bad faith, a kind act or sacrifice arising from some forgotten reservoir of decency would be better off seeking less severe wit. Wagner mines the old joke about Hollywood that "underneath the tinsel there's more tinsel", and obviously appreciates Jean Baudrillard's theories on simulacra, where the slavish and stylized impression has replaced the real; set this heady abstraction on to the business of celebrity lookalikes and the community that arises among them, we get a twisting , fun house mirror of Hollywood , a parallel existence that mimes the worst and most inane features of the stars they imitate. Wagner, in addition, writes like a wizard who knows where all the bodies are buried and the garbage is dumped.
October 8, 2008
I saw this writer along with William Gibson at the LA Times Festival of Books and was impressed enough to pick up this book. On the whole I enjoyed it but I must admit that I prefer Bruce Wagner the culture critic to Bruce Wagner the writer. I think his dressing down of Hollywood, celebrity culture and trappings is very well done (maybe even laid the blueprint for Tropic Thunder) but I think the narrative and plot arcs got a litle loopy and a little contrived at times. It is at times very funny though, and I thought the characters were interesting and well written. Recommend for anyone interested in celebrity culture.
November 17, 2011
The third novel in the "Cellular Trilogy" (first two: I'm Losing You and I'll Let You Go), this is a raunchy, caustic, scathing, and funny satire of insider Hollywood, intermingling real and fictional names. It's entertaining and sometimes appalling--over the top. The writer seems to be someone who knows the territory.
August 11, 2011
I'm a fan of miserablism. But there's an art to it. This book is so over-the-top in it's series of terrible situations, that it is frankly funny. But funny without real wit.
Like the mirror image of the worst chicklit, proving that one extreme is just as bad as the other.
Like the mirror image of the worst chicklit, proving that one extreme is just as bad as the other.
June 25, 2012
Solid expose of the hypocrisies of modern Hollywood, but I felt the editor failed us in not cutting off some of the bloat. Too much meandering irreverent asides drown a scathing critique somewhere in there.
April 24, 2008
L.A. weirdness. Celebrities as people and also not people. Buddhism in the heads of Hollywood westerners. Rich people with ideas. Check it out.
October 3, 2009
If I had never been to LA before reading this book, I would probably never go. It's strange to read a book where the only character who is not a complete jerk--or actually crazy--is a movie star.
January 25, 2010
Another tale of Hollywood weirdness. Darker and less fun than James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning with overly ample smatterings of Buddhism. Not one I'll be passing on to others.
March 29, 2010
hollywood misery and metaphysics.
August 14, 2011
hilarious, dark cutting satire on hollywood stars and various other hollywood freaks. One of my favourite reads of the last 5 years
June 16, 2014
Interminable.
September 16, 2015
Characters so one dimensional it was painful - it tried so hard to appeal to what people think of as Hollywood stereotypes that it came across as pathetic.
July 11, 2008
I'm thankful to Wagner for making laugh about things I wasn't remotely aware of.
never-finished
December 7, 2013Bleh. Cliche characters, cliche dialogue.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews