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The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers: Two Novellas
The sacred and the profane come together with visceral force in two novellas by Bruce Wagner, The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers.
The Met Gala follows a prominent family of influencers and would-be philanthropic socialites in the Hollywood hills as they spiral ever further away from reality. Candida is a young actress who sleeps with the “unhoused”—the ultimate charitable act—and her brother, Charlie, transitioned into womanhood at the age of eleven. Their mother and father have long been divorced but still come together to torment their children, mutilating and destroying friends and enemies along the way.
Tales of Saints and Seekers is the digestivo, a collection of stories about the journey to enlightenment and the wisdom given by gurus. Where The Met Gala pushes past boundaries and steps over the line, Tales of Saints and Seekers knows that there is no line at all, only characters who travel on their own path, sometimes straying and other times going completely off the map. Wagner is able to hold the dichotomy of the sacred and profane in one book, smearing them together, and ripping them apart. The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers is an illuminated manuscript of Heaven and Hell.
The Met Gala follows a prominent family of influencers and would-be philanthropic socialites in the Hollywood hills as they spiral ever further away from reality. Candida is a young actress who sleeps with the “unhoused”—the ultimate charitable act—and her brother, Charlie, transitioned into womanhood at the age of eleven. Their mother and father have long been divorced but still come together to torment their children, mutilating and destroying friends and enemies along the way.
Tales of Saints and Seekers is the digestivo, a collection of stories about the journey to enlightenment and the wisdom given by gurus. Where The Met Gala pushes past boundaries and steps over the line, Tales of Saints and Seekers knows that there is no line at all, only characters who travel on their own path, sometimes straying and other times going completely off the map. Wagner is able to hold the dichotomy of the sacred and profane in one book, smearing them together, and ripping them apart. The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers is an illuminated manuscript of Heaven and Hell.
- GenresFiction
374 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 4, 2024
8 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Wagner
32 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 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 4, 2024
A transsexual’s fake vagina: plucked from the taint, from teste-skin, and most horrifyingly from intestines—this is Bruce Wagner’s image of 2024. Its half shitty, half necrotic stink, which we are forced to accept as bold-and-brave heavenly pussy nectar, is the dominant motif of THE MET GALA, a classically Wagnerian tale of coincidence and cruelty that, against all odds, nails the moment.
TALES OF SAINTS AND SEEKERS is a collection of quasi-Buddhist parables, set in today’s TikTok, OnlyFans, Emma Roberts-centric world, which very quickly comes to seem like one of Borges’ anthology books. Certain of these yarns constitute his finest writing since MEMORIAL—which is to say, absolutely on the top shelf.
TALES OF SAINTS AND SEEKERS is a collection of quasi-Buddhist parables, set in today’s TikTok, OnlyFans, Emma Roberts-centric world, which very quickly comes to seem like one of Borges’ anthology books. Certain of these yarns constitute his finest writing since MEMORIAL—which is to say, absolutely on the top shelf.
July 12, 2024
I think just not for me! Some factual inaccuracies in the first novella which i know are frivolous but still kind of took me out of it and kind of made the themes and stories feel for naught.
June 13, 2024
Wagner is at his best. Truly. The Met Gala is such a tight and satirically brilliant novella. And the stories in the second half of the book are touching, poignant, and devastatingly sharp.
September 22, 2025
The Met Gala - 3 ⭐️ Juicy and scandalous. Take a shot every time Wagner name drops a celebrity.
Tales of Saints and Seekers - 1 ⭐️ This did nothing for me.
Tales of Saints and Seekers - 1 ⭐️ This did nothing for me.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews