The Los Angeles Wildfires In Fiction

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner returns to discuss his exceptionally timely new novel Amputation—a strange, exuberant, and ultra meta work set against a topic I’ve talked about a lot this year, the January LA wildfires. Bruce, an L.A. native and prominent literary figure in the city, explains how the book came together in less than two months, why he resists “political novels” even when writing inside a political moment, and how language (not legacy) keeps him making art.

We also talk about real-life figures who appear as characters (Stephen Colbert, Mayor Karen Bass, Debra Winger, and a Timothée Chalamet student double, among others), the surrealism of driving through miles of leveled neighborhoods, and the deranged comic-tragic chorus of the Nextdoor app. Bruce also reflects on being an L.A. “outsider who outsided his way inside,” why the book is opera, not noir, and what it means to keep walking the “narrow, burning road to the palace.”

Guest Bio:

Bruce Wagner is the author of fifteen novels, including the “cell phone” trilogy, The Marvel Universe, The Met Gala and Tales of Saints and Seekers, Roar: American Master, and now Amputation. A longtime Hollywood insider/outsider, he has written for film and television and is currently published by Arcade.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think every writer has a scent. I've often called it, you know, your work are the royal garments, you know.
0:07.4	And when you vanish, people will pick your books up and if people are reading at all.
0:14.9	And they will have a sense of smell, you know, and they will be able to catch your scent.
0:26.8	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast, the podcast that is this close to being renamed the
0:32.5	unspeak-easy podcast. In fact, depending on how fast we can get our branding up and running on the various
0:38.7	platforms, it already may be named the unspeak-easy. In any case, I am still your host,
0:44.6	Megan Dowm. This is the same podcast. Nothing is changing but the name. But I think since we've
0:50.8	moved past the era of unspeakability, for better for worse, this is a better name.
0:56.8	My guest is the fabulous novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner.
1:02.5	Bruce has had a prolific and eccentric career spanning more than three decades.
1:07.6	His acclaimed trilogy of novels called The Cell Phone Trilogy, published back in the 90s and early
1:14.2	2000s novels like, I'm losing you and I'll let you go back when cell phones were very novel.
1:22.1	They are classics of dark Hollywood satire, and he's written several films, including maps to the stars.
1:29.3	His new novel, written and published with impressive speed, is called Amputation.
1:35.3	And it is about the L.A. Wildfires.
1:38.4	Yes, this is the first L.A. Wildfire novel to come around the bend.
1:44.3	The characters include fictionalized versions of Stephen Colbert, Deborah Winger, and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, among others.
1:52.9	It is funny and weird and dark, and also strangely transcendent, as is this conversation.
1:59.5	So here it is, Bruce Wagner.
2:05.7	Bruce Wagner, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks, Megan. You were here in January
2:12.1	2021 talking about the Marvel Universe. We talked about the controversy around that book, particularly
2:20.1	around one of the characters, Fat Joan. We don't need to dip too much back into that,
	...

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