Dead Stars

Bruce Wagner weaves together tales of desperation and depravity of the modern age in Dead Stars, his uproarious and sharply critical take on the obsessions of Hollywood.

Telma, the world’s youngest breast cancer survivor, is threatened with obscurity by a four-year-old that’s undergone a mastectomy. Reeyonna, a pregnant teenager, believes she will befriend Kanye West by auditioning for pregnant teenage porn. A photographer, Jacquie, rejuvenates her career by turning her lens toward dead babies. And Michael Douglas searches for purpose and meaning when his wife, Catherine, guest-stars on the television series, Glee.

Wagner gives a tour through the lowest depths of fame-seeking behavior and idolatry in what The New York Times called a “collagelike picture of Hollywood as a sewer of depravity.”