I'm Losing You

by Bruce Wagner

In an epic novel that does for Hollywood what Nashville did for Nashville, I’m Losing You follows the rich and famous and the down and out as their lives intersect in a series of coincidences that exposes the “bigger than life” ferocity of Hollywood—and proves that Bruce Wagner is a talent to be reckoned with. Wagner, author of the novel Dead Stars, examines the psychological complexities of Hollywood reality and fantasy, soaring far beyond the reaches of Robert Stone's Children of Light and Nathaniel West's The Day of the Locust.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Contemporary

335 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1992

About the author

Bruce 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.

Reviews

[R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wagner is definitely, defiantly, a writer's writer - each and every page had at least three terrific turns of fabulous phrase or gorgeously wrought description. He elevated a diseased spider's woozy web of soap opera storylines into something human, humane, spiritual -a prose monument, a towering, infernally beautiful stained (in more ways than one) glass cathedral eccentrically populated with intricate clockwork gargoyles, grotesques finely calibrated to slowly smile, curated by a master craftsman to chime with the hollow ring of Faustian deals and delusions on the hour and at the Hour of Judgment. (Still working on this brb)

[Gail · Rating 1 out of 5]

Argh. I picked this book up (and kept reading even when I wanted to put it down) because a writer I like listed it as one of her favorite books in an interview. I wish I hadn't. If you want to wallow around in a vile and hideous world with vile and hideous characters who do vile and hideous things and whose lives end hideously, this is the book for you. I take that back - even if you want something vile and hideous, you'll surely be able to find something that's better done.

This book has so many characters, and they're all interrelated at some point or another, that I lost track of them (and didn't care enough to make a list, which would probably be what it takes to follow it). It is written with the most frenetically changing POV I may have seen, sometimes in straight narration, sometimes in more of an epistolary form. That may sound fun, and it could be, theoretically, but it wasn't here. It was just fragmented and confusing. Speaking of confusing, I don't know when this book is supposed to be set. It feels like something from the 80s (the places mentioned (I'm from LA and know when these spots were at their height), the movie stars mentioned, the obsession with AIDS as an apparently new phenomenon); however, it was written in 1996 and has moments when the characters reference things that happened in 1995 (specifically by date), so it appears to have been intended to feel current at that time. But it didn't. If there was a reason for this, I have no idea what it was.

And then there's the language. Oh my. Incredibly overblown. The author appears to be using "big words" for the sake of being impressive, as opposed to clarifying or adding to the reading experience. It was yet another distraction.

Do I have anything nice to say about it? Not really.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an ugly book, beautifully written… I walked away from writing this for a couple weeks to get some perspective. If you’re interested in Hollywood novels, add this to you list. But be warned that there are no happy endings. There are many reprehensible characters and even the seemingly, at first, sympathetic characters end up not having much of our sympathy. It’s many stories that more or less are intertwined. Some of there are disgusting, but compelling, if that makes any sense. On the whole, I’d recommend it if you have a stomach for some degree of personal degradation, as long as it’s for a greater purpose.

[Joseph Carley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up in a used bookstore in Portland. It's a fictional story about the intersecting lives of a bunch of vapid Hollywood people. One of those cosmic tales where everyone is interrelated. Total beach read in terms of its subject matter, but with hip prose and some interesting plot twists. Mostly a pleasurable read, although I'd recommend making a list of characters to remind yourself who everyone is.

[William Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

the only word that i can use to describe this book is supercilious. his use of metaphor and imagery was offputting because of the way they were written. it seemed like they were mostly images stuck inside of his own head that he was trying to put on paper but unsuccessfully doing so, when referring to the "skinhead sodomizing her" as a way of saying she had cancer of the bowels. i would normally have liked something like this as it sounds quirky and funny enough, but the way it fits into the rest of the sentence makes it sound pompous and overblown. his sentences feel incomplete and it reads like a police blotter, the pace i mean. this is definitely nowher enear Day of the Locust as far as hollywood novels go.

[Lily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this. All the characters were horrific, I found the writing to be pretentious. It had no redeeming qualities at all.

[Andrew]

My god Wagner can turn a phrase. But also my god, this was a bit of a slog. He really does go all over the place, without seeming to have much care as to where he lands – there’s stream of consciousness, but this is stream of 3 a.m. coke convo. I liked Dead Stars and some of the short stories a lot more – they were a bit more coherent, and some more structure would really be useful here, especially given just how many absolute bars Wagner drops.

[John Kestner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before the book completely lost me, I should have made a list of characters to keep track of what was going on. But would that have made a difference? Everyone in this book was a despicable character in one way or another. Diseased sexual deviants. Drugged out losers. Has-beens who never had a soul. Wannabees who've already sold theirs. About one-third of the way through, I had no idea which female character was which, not only because of the gender confusion from their f-d up lives, but they were all insane and equally hard to understand.

I know more about expensive watches and Jewish death rites than I wanted to, which didn't help relate to the story.

I'm actually curious about the film version now. Not because I think it'll be an entertaining story. I'm just curious to see what the screenwriter saw in this book.

[Aaron McQuiston · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are two groups in America that are endlessly fascinating due to the depth of secrecy, depravity, and lack of moral compass they possess. The first is people in the government. The second is people in the entertainment industry. It can be argued that we pay closer attention to actors, directors, producers, and everyone connected to making film and TV more than government officials because we enjoy the art that people in Hollywood produce, and sometimes we develop an emotional attachment to TV shows and movies. Because of this we hope in the depths of our heart that the people who make us feel attached to a movie or television program are good people. (We also want this feeling about Hollywood people because we already know our fascination with the government officials is because there is no hope for them. They are all awful people, but we follow them because of the other emotions they invoke, sometimes good, but mostly bad.) Another difference between Hollywood and Washington is that there still seems to be an achievable dream about making a career in entertainment, TV shows, making movies, rubbing elbows with famous people, and being part of the industry. The reverse of this is true in the government. Common citizens have been locked out of the government, and there is no sense of having a career in politics because there is no positive side to the dream. The corruption in Hollywood and Washington has always existed and will always bring stories that are bizarre, unbelievable, and sometimes infuriating.

Bruce Wagner knows this. He has written many books about Hollywood and the system of film and television making. He also writes about how many of those behind the entertainment are terrible people. Terrible people in Hollywood have always existed, and as the times change, so do the depravities. Some very disturbing things are done between characters in this novel, and these things are not new to the entertainment industry. The more you read the history of Hollywood and the famous people (the Big Stars) or the rich people that keep the industry moving, you learn that there is something corrupted about a group of famous and rich people living together, almost like they have to outdo each other with their disgusting acts.

This is the backdrop of his novel I’m Losing You. He takes a set of stories from a group of characters associated with making movies and television, particularly producers, and wads their lives up into a huge tangled knot. There are many characters that are threaded throughout, including producers, assistants, a director of softcore pornography wanting to make a name for himself, writers trying to get their scripts noticed, drug pushing doctors, psychiatrists, and old TV stars that are shocked when people recognize them. The knot is huge, and the strings go in so many different directions, sometimes directions that you do not expect. At the center of this knot is the truth that in Wagner’s Hollywood, nobody gets what they expect or what they desire. Instead they settle for what they are given. And the worse you treat others, the worse your fate. I’m Losing You is filled with disappointment. Most of the novel’s characters start with optimism, but not a single one of them gets what they expect.

Wagner’s writing reminds me of another writer who writes about Los Angeles, James Ellroy. Ellroy writes about the corrupt Los Angeles police. Wagner writes about the corrupt entertainment industry. I find the stories about Hollywood and Film and TV production more fascinating than the police, but I also know that Ellroy’s depiction of Los Angeles police is just as interesting as Wagner’s Hollywood. I’m Losing You is written in a similar style as an Ellroy novel, and it is sometimes difficult because there are so many characters and threads that are just one big knot, and the writing is stylized on top of it, sometimes with puns and metaphors, and sometimes with scenes that grow more and more abstract. I like the challenge of reading Bruce Wagner’s (and Ellroy’s) novels. After all of the ugliness that propels the people and the stories from page to page, Wagner does a good job in showing growth for many (not all but many) of the characters, and this to me makes I’m Losing You worth the effort.

[Stephen Jackson]

You might reasonably suspect a wry and unsparingly dark Hollywood satire would be just what the book doctor ordered, but I was eager to be done with this. I have no problem with the Magnolia-esque construct where different characters’ stories overlap in heinous and (psycho)sexual ways. Indeed, this didn’t offer many opportunities to build an emotional relationship with any of the characters, and I’m not sure I was meant to or wanted to.

I guess the point is that Hollywood is no place for the pure of heart, and it will beat the pure of heart to death with its bare hands. Perhaps the only way to survive is to be blind to and thus ignorant of the Babylonian, vainglorious reality of the place responsible for so much magic. But if that’s the point, it was fairly and squarely made within the first 50 pages. Perhaps I’d understand it better if I had grown up Jewish or was an adult in the 90s; I’m sure a lot went over my head. Alas.

[Harry Ramble · Rating 5 out of 5]

When this book first appeared in 1996, readers -- confronted with its staggering volume of bedlam and grotesqueries -- had little choice but to read it as pitch-black satire. The author, however, has always insisted that it is intended as high melodrama, and I see now you can read it that way. It's a relief, at any rate, not to have to laugh at the jokes this time around.

More recently, the author has also suggested that today's generation of highly sensitive readers with twitchy radar for all things non-PC would instantly toss all of his books on a bonfire if they knew they existed, and he's not wrong. There's plenty of stuff here so outrageous that I hadn't forgotten it 24 years down the road. And how many books can you say that about?

[Bryan Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's no question that Wagner is an intense, talented writer, but to be honest, although there are plenty of his characteristic one-liners and scenes of pacey dialogue where it sounds like character is both schooled in sarcasm and on cocaine (or at least those diet pills that work like amphetamines), this novel left me flat. I got so lost in the bloated dramatis personae that by the end of it, I couldn't even tell you what was happening, or who was who. This is an early novel, though, and it seems like this is a problem Wagner ironed out by the turn of the millennium. Not a bad read, but not a great place to start with this particular author, at least if you want to be compelled to read more of his oeuvre.

[W Freeman]

Loses what was great about itself in its first part with pomo cleverness which leverages Wagner’s ego in his own style and structuralism above all else, which would be fine I suppose if you’ve never seen them done better elsewhere. By the last part I gave up and decided it was not worth slugging toward whatever limp conclusion it could reach. Wagner is a writer I feel a certain kinship toward and I keep returning to but I have never thought that anything i’ve seen or read with his print on it wasn’t brought down by its own stench of self righteous smugness.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Dead Stars and then moved onto this book. Wish I hadn't. I must have said, "What the hell is going on?" multiple times. Solid characters to start with became so intertwined it was like trying to untangle a hairball halfway through. Watches? The intricacies of a religion? A character who winds up being a sadist? Dead children? I skimmed the last quarter of this book, and it made as much sense as when I was reading it page by page.

[Kurishin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are prepared to view LA/Hollywood from a satirically symbolic perspective, then please read this. As an outsider, I think I missed chunks of what is on offer here, but that is my problem, not Wagner's. It is satire at perhaps its' highest level-those can understand more of it do not have the perspective to actually access the humor and insights.

[Karl O' · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m Losing You - lost me. I was really enjoying it then it ran out of steam and got into fences and vomit . As it got more purposefully over the top it got less interesting. I’m not bothered by how vile it got, it became uninteresting . The character set was too fragmented.

[Nick Milinazzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slightly askew mirror taken to the City of Angels, that progresses into something poignant and deeper than one might expect.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brutal Hollywood satire/melodrama written with lots of panache. And yet, while he savages them, the author has great sympathy for most of his characters.

[Anthony Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the way Bruce Wagner writes, but in this one I feel like the story was a little weak. But still enjoyed the experience of reading it.

[DJ THANK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interesting stuff happening in this book. Too many characters though. This is one of Bruce’s less violent reads, although there are some pretty devastating threads. I enjoyed myself.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished rereading this novel about Hollywood by screenwriter/director Wagner and I've got to say, again, it is the most luminously depressing book about the seediness of mankind that I have ever read. Wagner fills his book with agents, producers, actors and screenwriters including a handful of real life stars. All of them are very very pretty and most of them are either vapid or downright evil. Many chapters I read with nausea. People - at least those in Los Angeles - are really terrible, aren't they? Wagner is a more-than-capable wordsmith. His prose is very quippy and adventurous, but sometimes his cleverness becomes distracting.

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great writer but this one for me just petered out. Loved it at the beginning and then so much of it started sounding... the same and I just lost interest. But this is starting to be a pattern for me (finding the last third of a book a slog) and I'm becoming fearful that it's the fallout of screenwriting and spending so much time in shorter work. Comforted by how many other reviewers felt the same about this one.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the undertaking to weave 20-odd characters together through tragic vignettes, but the final product just didn't come through for me. The characters were wonderfully despicable though not depth-worthy enough for me to care what happened next. (With that said, maybe Wagner DID hit the nail on the Hollywood head.) I was skimming throughout!

[Walter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wagner is a modern novelist in the sense that he lacks the skill and patience for writing novels. Disjointed sketches slip together in detailed accounts of perversion and depravity. Wagner feints at being a moralist, but he is really an immoralist. Wallowing in the worst of us, asking readers to share in his masochism--his sick pleasures. A tiny effort.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harsh and kinky satire of Hollywood, told from many points of view in a variety of styles. Some if it is very funny and
pointed, but keeping the characters and their relationships to one another straight can be tricky. In the end, I'm not sure what it all added up to.

[Mary Newcomb]

This was confusing, interesting, disturbing, insightful and unusual. I read most of this while feeling under the weather, I think it somehow made the novel fit together much better. There are more novels by this author, not sure if I will be reading them or not.

[Armand · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I'm Losing You" written in a very confusing "diary entries" narrative style, of little blurbs and items. Couldn't really bother to get involved enough to follow it, so I skipped through it. A waste of time. Very disappointing.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal. (Just glad I listed it before Addie)

[Tiana Murillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

ultimately a downer, but not without its darkly humorous moments. wagner is a brilliant writer.

[Darcie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended to me by an English professor. It is both hilarious and raunchy, although the style bogs it down a bit.