The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers
Two Novellas
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wagner (I'm Losing You) shines with "The Met Gala," a devilish and dizzying novella about a wealthy Hollywood family, but stumbles in "Tales of Saints and Seekers," a curious gathering of pseudo-philosophical allegories, making for a mismatched bundle. The first entry stars the glamorous and fractured Coldstream family: divorced "chic billionairess" Corinne; her snarky queer ex-husband Dax; their older daughter Candida, 21, a struggling and suicidal actor; and their "darkly funny" trans daughter Charlie, 16, whom they named after the Revlon perfume. Charlie is obsessed with sought-after fashion designer Rick Owens, who's creating dazzling outfits for the family's annual Met Gala appearance, while Candida joins her friend Talula in the "Houseless Hook-Up Challenge," in which they each have sex with a random person who's living on the street. When Corinne accidentally hits and kills two children while driving her Rolls-Royce, the "family fixer" rushes into action. The volume's second section is a collection of brisk Southern California–based spiritual parables adapted from Aesop, Greek Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn, and Sufi wisdom, among other sources. In them, screenwriters, actors, therapists, and other Los Angelenos are caught in wry mishaps where their inexperience, arrogance, prejudices, or spiritual deficiencies lead to opportunities for enlightenment. These vignettes, however soulful they may be, pale in comparison to the masterly satire of "The Met Gala." It's a mixed bag.
