The Rich Roll Podcast – Episode Summary
Bruce Wagner Writes Transgressive Novels About Tragedy & Transcendence
Date: January 29, 2026
Host: Rich Roll | Guest: Bruce Wagner

Overview

This episode immerses listeners in the raw, operatic world of acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner. Known for his unflinching explorations of Hollywood as both a playground for need and vanity and a lens for human suffering, Wagner joins Rich Roll for a deep and nuanced conversation about the nature of transgressive art, the power of language, trauma and transcendence, and his decades-long spiritual journey. The episode explores the sacred and the profane, the interplay of fiction and reality, and the writer’s perpetual struggle with impermanence, recognition, and the very act of creating.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Bruce Wagner’s Artistic Ethos

• Attack on Artifice and Bullshit

  • "As a writer, I attack and destroy bullshit." (Bruce, 00:02)
  • Wagner describes his approach as one fundamentally dedicated to cutting through façades – whether personal or societal.
  • He refuses to write for an audience: "I never wrote for a reader, ever. I explore every forbidden place in myself." (00:25)
  • He admits to being haunted by the tension between artistic integrity and commercial validation, confessing, "There's only one thing I'm really worried about from the moment I put my head on the pillow and it's book sales. What are my book sales?" (00:25, 111:19)

• Hollywood as a Laboratory for Spiritual Inquiry

  • Wagner uses Hollywood as both subject and metaphor—a crucible for exploring extremity, need, longing, and transcendence (00:49).
  • Hollywood's dichotomies—wealth/poverty, celebrity/invisibility—mirror deeper spiritual tensions, referenced via a Buddhist story about vanity and the challenges of transcending the need for approbation (01:34).

• The Scent of Literature

  • Wagner is obsessed with the "scent" of writers and works, referencing how certain texts, like Fitzgerald’s Pat Hobby Stories and Dickens, have shaped his sense of pathos, fatalism, and the sacred (01:34–07:25).
  • "Dickens, for me, was an apotheosis of the most powerful perfume for me because it contained the fastidious, obsessive, romantic, almost mathematical use of language..." (15:13)

Trauma, Transgression & Identity

• Personal Trauma as Creative Catalyst

  • Wagner candidly discusses his abusive childhood, calling his father "a sadistic alcoholic" and delving into how trauma shaped both his outlook and his artistic drive (08:27).
  • This trauma, combined with a unique, near-idyllic yet dysfunctional Beverly Hills upbringing, led to a lifelong search for father figures and creative mentors (13:56).

• Why Transgression Matters

  • Transgression is central to Wagner’s work: “It is very important for me and it's perhaps at the core of what I do. And what could be more transgressive than the sacred, really?” (29:25)
  • He unpacks his ongoing fixation with taboo subjects, including incest, linking this to his own childhood experience and his need to "attack and destroy bullshit" (29:25, 29:41).
  • Wagner sees both the saintly and the monstrous within himself and his characters, making a case for fully embracing the shadow to enable the possibility of transcendence (36:41).

• Reality vs. Artifice in Hollywood & Humanity

  • Roll: "The scent is really like what is behind that closed door? What's motivating that behavior? And what is the truth of all of this? And is there an opportunity for transcendence within these doomed cycles?" (32:48)
  • Wagner: "I wanted to inhabit the places... that was so infernal that why hadn't I visited there before? ... Without the spiritual aspect, you atrophy and you become a kind of curiosity to others and to oneself and you become a fetishist, you know?" (36:41)

Spirituality & Castaneda

• Journey into Spiritual Disciplines

  • After his friend’s death, Wagner was drawn to the teachings of Carlos Castaneda—spending a decade as part of Castaneda’s inner circle (44:08–57:35).
  • Castaneda’s core lesson: ordinary reality ("the tonal") and non-ordinary reality ("the nahual") are illusions we are conditioned to believe; liberation comes in breaking those constructs (57:35).
  • Key practice: recapitulation—a painstaking process of reliving and detailing one's life to achieve personal liberation (58:16–66:47).

• The Mind as the Ultimate Saboteur

  • "What would allow one to do lucid dreaming was the temporary eclipse of the mind which wants to control everything. He really felt the mind was the fifth column, that it was the saboteur." (58:16)

The Writer’s Process, Decline of the Novel, and Impermanence

• Language as Survival & Obsession

  • Wagner’s love of language has been both liberating and constraining, likening himself to one "wrapped by a boa constrictor" made of words (19:03).
  • He struggles to read as he once did but finds religious meaning in the act—and agony in the rest slipping away (15:13–19:03).

• Shifts in the Publishing World

  • Wagner laments the loss of the novelist's relevance and celebrity, citing dwindling book sales and cultural attention (73:46–78:42).
  • "There are many writers who are reviewed in these really antique things like the New York Times... sell 100 copies." (74:45)
  • Both Wagner and Roll discuss the transformation of the literary landscape, the rise of nonfiction, and the threat (and potential) of AI in art.

• Meditations on Impermanence & Legacy

  • Wagner accepts the inevitable vanishing of books and identity: "Everything is going to die. ... Legacy, it's an absurdity." (78:42)
  • He notes the Buddhist lesson: “The lesson of impermanence arrives at most inconvenient times.” (78:42)

Creativity Born of Crisis

• Amputation and the Post-Fire Creative Surge

  • Wagner wrote his latest book, Amputation, in the aftermath of the destructive fires, compelled by a "furnace of rage" but insistent on making art, not polemic (84:04).
  • "My desire was to write, to create a work of art about what had happened. Not a polemic, because I don't do that." (84:04)
  • He describes using fiction to process not just anger or tragedy—but also acceptance, surrender, and the unknowable (88:35–91:31).

• Blurring Fact and Fantasy

  • Wagner frequently writes real public figures into his books (Colbert, Bass, Chalamet, etc.), merging reality and imagination. He emphasizes empathy even when fictionalizing real people: "I really came to have great sympathy and respect for Colbert in writing this book. So I never have an idea in my mind that I'm going to roast X, Y, or Z..." (96:16)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On embracing one's duality:

  • "In my work, I am as close to the saintly characters that appear as I am to the malevolent, homicidal, perverse characters..." (36:41 Bruce Wagner)

• On artistic purpose and spiritual journey:

  • "What I'm interested in is that kind of spiritual journey towards transcendence. ... It's the spirituality that has baked into all of this that interests me the most." (Rich Roll, 00:49)

• On legacy and impermanence:

  • "Everything is going to die. Everything is going to vanish. This idea of legacy. It's an absurdity." (Bruce Wagner, 78:42)

• On the decline of literary culture:

  • "I'm working as a consigliere editor at Arcade Books, and... the state of publishing and book reading is dismal." (74:45 Bruce Wagner)
  • "We don't have a monoculture anymore... and yet we can't let this art form die." (Rich Roll, 76:16)

• On the continuing pull to write:

  • "There's only one thing I'm really worried about. From the moment I wake up and the moment I put my head on the pillow and it's book sales. What are my book sales?" (Bruce Wagner, 111:19)

• On transformation as art:

  • "Any endeavor of deep and uncompromising transformation becomes an artistic act." (Bruce Wagner, 116:13)

• On finding beauty in the mundane:

  • "She was staring at these cheap ornaments, and she said, 'How beautiful.' It destroyed me." (Bruce Wagner, 120:36)

Notable Timestamps

| Time | Segment / Content | |--------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:02 | Wagner on attacking bullshit in his writing | | 01:34 | Wagner on the spiritual themes in his work | | 08:27 | Wagner describes his traumatic childhood | | 13:56 | Roll connects Wagner’s upbringing to his creative voice | | 15:13 | Wagner’s love affair with language | | 29:25 | Discussion of transgression and exploring taboo | | 36:41 | Inhabiting extremes, spiritual necessity in art | | 44:08–57:35 | Wagner on meeting and studying with Carlos Castaneda | | 58:16 | Castaneda’s philosophy: breaking the description of the world | | 70:30 | Wagner’s writing process and his relationship to creativity | | 73:46 | Decline of literary celebrity and cultural impact of novels | | 78:42 | On legacy, impermanence, and self-destruction | | 84:04 | Writing Amputation out of crisis and fury | | 95:00 | Merging real and fictional figures in his work | | 100:26 | Wagner’s empathy for real figures in his books | | 111:19 | Wagner on aging, mortality, and the persistence of concern over recognition | | 116:13 | "Transformation is art" – discussion on superhuman intent and meaning | | 120:36 | The story of his goddaughter and beauty in the mundane |

Tone & Style

• The conversation is raw, deeply personal, elliptical, and poetic—marked by Wagner’s penchant for metaphor, parable, and pathos. The tone alternates between fatalistic humor ("It's all going to go away anyway" 19:03), resigned sorrow, and exuberant erudition. Rich Roll interjects with empathy, curiosity, and reflections on creative and spiritual striving.

Conclusion

This rich, winding dialogue is as much a journey through the psyche of a singular artist as it is a meditation on the state of art, the necessity (and impossibility) of transcendence, and the fleeting nature of recognition, legacy, and even selfhood. Wagner’s admissions of vulnerability, his flair for the sacred and the sordid, and his insistence on art’s spiritual purpose all open a window into why, even amidst cultural decline, the novel—and the quest for meaning—persist.