Books: Oedipus Wrecks

The Chrysanthemum Palace (Simon & Schuster; 210 pages) is Bruce Wagner's fifth satirical novel and his fifth set among the moguls and movie stars of Hollywood. Which makes you wonder whether there's really any muck left in Hollywood for him to rake. Hasn't he already scorched all the earth, dug up all the bodies, skewered all the foibles there are to skewer?

The novel is narrated by Bertie Krohn, a frustrated actor languishing in the shadow of his famous father Perry, who created Starwatch: The Navigators, "TV's longest-running syndicated space opera," i.e., Star Trek by any other name. Bertie's a bright, affable fellow, but every little success he has feels cheapened in comparison with his dad's overpowering accomplishments.

Famous parents are the bad guys in this monster movie. Bertie's childhood friend and occasional lover, Clea, is the daughter of a toweringly successful Hepburnesque actress. Bertie and Clea both have regular acting gigs on Starwatch, and when an older actor named Thad Michelet arrives on the set, it turns out that he is burdened with an overbearing parent of his own--his father is a wildly famous novelist. The three bond on sight, with an audible magnetic click.

Together Bertie, Clea and the grandiose, poetry-spouting, heavily medicated Thad ratchet from party to party, from mansion to beach house to resort, propping one another up. They're identically damaged souls, orbiting one another faster and faster, out of control, lost in space. There's plenty of sharp, funny show-biz business here. The celebrity cameos come thick and fast (Sharon Stone! Rob Reiner!), and Thad's guest spot on Starwatch is hilariously embarrassing--he has to wear alien makeup and say things like "I believe ... we are being appropriated by the Vorbalidian System." But Wagner boldly goes beyond satire in The Chrysanthemum Palace. He finds surprising depths to plumb, even in the land of the superficial. The question that drives the book is, Can children ever escape the crushing gravitational fields of their parents? The answer, it turns out, is that sometimes even warp speed isn't fast enough. --By Lev Grossman