Amputation -- Bruce Wagner, Hardcover

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.


Author: Bruce Wagner
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 09/23/2025
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781648211614

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 08/01/2025

About the Author
Bruce Wagner has written fourteen novels, including the famous "Cellphone Trilogy,"--I'm Losing You (PEN USA finalist), I'll Let You Go, and Still Holding--and the PEN/Faulkner-finalist Chrysanthemum Palace. His more recent titles include ROAR: American Master and The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers. He wrote the screenplay for David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, for which Julianne Moore won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. He lives in Los Angeles.