Amputation: A Novel

by Bruce Wagner

AMPUTATION is the first novel to be written about the inferno that obliterated two Los Angeles cities in January of 2025. Major characters are comedian Stephen Colbert; Karen Bass; a Timothée Chalamet stunt double; a fiercely pro-Palestinian heiress and her Zionist father; disgraced Grey’s Anatomy writer Elisabeth Finch and a failed indie film producer——along with an assorted battalion of ordinary people, opportunists and looters.

A fable drenched in hyperrealism, AMPUTATION is a burnt jewel box showcasing Wagner's transcendent, scabrously poetic powers as he explores the lives (and deaths) of the fire victims, and the consequences of dereliction, delusion, incompetence——and impermanence. 
 

Genres: Fiction

200 pages, Hardcover

Published September 23, 2025

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

[Kaleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up because I'm always interested in novels about the current zeitgeist and this seemed fun. Enjoyed the first chapter about Stephen Colbert but realized too late this is a collection of interwoven short stories and not all of them have the same punch. It's caustic and feels like it was written in a whirlwind (i mean it literally had to be with how recent the subject matter is) and it got messy fast. If you're looking for dark satire of coastal elites/literal celebs, this book is for you, but for me, I'm just burnt out on satire bc at this point the world is impossible to satirize!!!

thank you to netgalley and skyhorse/arcade for the arc.

[mari]

DNF @ 20%

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like this, but the more I read the more confused I became. It felt like as soon as I began understanding what was going on I was immediately thrown into the pov of another character and had to start the process all over again. At times it also felt like the writing was too niche, almost if having to live in LA was a requirement for understanding the way the characters spoke. I understand this is taking place during the devastating fires that just took place in SoCal, but I still felt so discombobulated. Also none of the characters felt real, like caricature of what people think people in LA are like and maybe that was the point but I just felt annoyed. I definitely think this will be someone else's cup of tea, but I was just overall disappointed with this one.

[Matthew Wilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fall of Los Angeles seen as a series of spiritual pilgrimages, some unintentional, some half-witted, all profound. Having written the great LA fire novel at balls-to-the-wall speed is itself one of the book’s wisdoms. I am reminded of the title of an unmade late Hitchcock novel: KALEIDOSCOPE FRENZY.

[Alex J. Holt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The LA Fire was the biggest story for me this year, and this book processed the tragedy through Bruce’s eloquent prism, stocked with colorful characters, scabrous takes and outstanding storytelling.

Bruce’s powers and voice are distinct and something special to behold. Bruce is so good at not only black characters and children but also older women and powerbrokers.

AMPUTATION’s subplot or complication is about the biggest non election story of 2024, the Gaza war. That conflict immediately created a headache for me and I saw it tear people apart the way that right/left politics sometimes does. Within the Jewish community it creates a schism in Bruce’s universe, imperiling one of the character’s bequest.

Bruce’s ability to bring his cast together is so pleasurable and Altman-esque. The brusqueness (it ended suddenly for me bc it was not a physical copy) of AMPUTATION belies its density and insight. Bruce has either lived or done his research into Malibu and a Hollywood (5k for an option 😑).

Rod and Culp are both fine male characters. Esther is something to behold. Reading the book I started fantasizing about Sydney Holland.

Horsies! Horses. 🐎 I reflected on the fires and the horses in The Shards, and in the winter/spring of 24, I was especially fixated on the Santa Ana: Bruce read my mind in the best opening of his since dead stars. 🤩

[Max Renn · Rating 4 out of 5]

One gets the impression that Wagner skipped a few steps in his process to get this into print while embers were still smoldering on the ground. But what feels rough and slightly unfinished is more than made up for in the immediacy of Wagner's incandescent humanist rage as evidenced by the sublime page and a half preamble that might be the purest most savage Wagner thing Wagner has ever written. A near perfect short story unto itself.

What follows is a kaleidoscope of Wagnerian characters dropped mercilessly into the all-to-real wildfire catastrophe that ravaged Wagner's Hollywood milieu, and you can tell he took it all very personally. That some of these characters seem transported from perhaps some work in progress or off the cutting room floor from some of his other work, counterintuitively gives the entire thing an off-kilter authenticity.

One can almost imagine that this slender volume emerged out of one long weekend's near stream of consciousness cri de coeur, fueled by Wagner's need to hold someone or something accountable for the pain and suffering of his friends and neighbors, while true to form, extracting moments of genuine beauty in the process.

[Glen Helfand · Rating 4 out of 5]

A part of Los Angeles was lopped off. A cut to the landscape, and to the soul of this complicated city. Wagner's novel is of kindred spirits of Robert Altman's Short Cuts, or perhaps Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, ensembles updated to the fires that started the hellscape of 2025. Wagner's books tend toward the baroque, heavy and outlandish. This has elements, but its cinematic sweep has it go down in something as entertaining as religious. There are outlandish scenarios for real life players-- Stephen Colbert is pinned by a toppled tree and has Lord of the Rings hallucinations; Mayor Karen Bass is plagued with signs of dementia and a late in life baptism. There are Hollywood subplots related to Jewish responses to Gaza and the regional history of land grabs and real estate fortunes booming and busting. The earth is scorched, the trauma's yet to become post traumatic. History happens so quickly, and what seems like its too soon is more profound than one might expect.

[Daisy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this book through the goodreads giveaway, and I had high hopes to read it cause it looked interesting. But I was mistaken.

I DNF'd it after a few chapters.

I wanted to love it or at least read the full book, but it felt so choppy and poorly executed. Every chapter is a different person, you think you know what is going to happen, then you see a new name, a new story cutting off the story you were already invested in. Maybe this book would've been better if it wasn't as long? Or if the text message sections weren't there. I'm not sure what would've improved it for me.

At best it feels like you are multitasking searching up stories of what happened and who were affected in the LA fires, and at worst it feels like someone doomscrolling on social media.

[STACY · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy for an honest review, and the honest truth is: what did I just read?