3 Review(s)

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 Timothee 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.