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.

Bruce Wagner has written thirteen novels and bestsellers, including the famous ＂Cellphone Trilogy,＂ I’m Losing You (PEN USA finalist), I’ll Let You Go and Still Holding, Dead Stars, ROAR: American Master, The Oral Biography of Roger Orr, The Empty Chair, and the PEN/Faulkner-finalist Chrysanthemum Palace. He wrote the screenplay for David Cronenberg’s film Maps to the Stars, for which Julianne Moore won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. In 1993, Wagner wrote and created the visionary mini-series Wild Palms for producer Oliver Stone and co-wrote (with Ullman) three seasons of the acclaimed Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union. He has written essays and articles for the New York Times, Artforum and the New Yorker. He lives in Los Angeles.