One more sun-dappled, soul-mottled, earthquake-rattled Hollywood novelist

BRUCE WAGNER NURSED a large latte and studied The New York Times," writes Brendan Bernhard in an LA Weekly cover story. "As always, he was dressed in black, and two or three days’ dark stubble decorated his cheeks and prominent chin. His eyes, warm and brown like those of a highly intelligent dog, peered out of hefty black-framed glasses, and his partly bald, partly shaved head was the color of an old onion. Sitting in the otherwise deserted bar of the Bryant Park Hotel in midtown Manhattan, he might have been a solitude-loving fashion designer enjoying a bit of down time. In fact, he is our premier "Hollywood novelist," part of a celebrated lineage that runs from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Nathanael West, Budd Schulberg, Michael Tolkin and other witty, jaded observers of L.A.’s sun-dappled, soul-mottled, earthquake-rattled scene." Many worthy words follow the jangly lead...