num_pages: 224
description: F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Nathanael West in the breakthrough novel by critically acclaimed author Bruce Wagner. This quintessential L.A. novelist spins his most ambitious and moving story to date: a philosophical, heartbreaking tale of three friends lost in a California dream gone mad.The Chrysanthemum Palace introduces Bertie Krohn, the only child of Perry Krohn, creator of TV’s longest running space opera, Starwatch: The Navigators (which counts Jennifer Aniston and Donald Rumsfeld among its obsessed fans). Bertie recoutns the story of the last months in the lives of his two companions: Thad Michelet, author, actor, and son of a literary titan; and Clea Freemantle, emotionally fragile daughter of a legendary movie star, long dead. Scions of entertainment greatness, they call themselves the Three Musketeers; between them, as Bertie says, “there was more than enough material to bring psychoanalysis back into vogue.” As the incestuous clique attempts to scale the peaks claimed by their sacred yet monstrous parents over a two-week filming of a Starwatch episode in which they costar, Bertie scrupulously chronicles their highs and lows—as well as their futile struggle against the ravenous, narcissistic, and addicted Hollywood that claims them.Convulsive and poignant, The Chrysanthemum Palace is a tragic tale of friendship and fate writ large—a tour de force by a major writer whose narrative delivers devastating emotional impact.
language: English
title: The Chrysanthemum Palace
titlecomplete: The Chrysanthemum Palace
genres: Fiction
ratings_count: 159
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
publisher: Simon & Schuster