Business as Usual at Book Bash

The Scene: The publication party at the Creative Artists Agency in Beverly Hills for “Force Majeure,” Bruce Wagner’s scabrous new novel about modern Hollywood. Wagner, a former limo driver and screenwriter (“Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills”) paints a picture of Tinseltown so bleak it makes Jackie Collins look like Barbara Cartland. The party Thursday night was a joint effort between the publisher, Random House, and CAA, and more than one guest confessed: “I came mostly to see what the inside of CAA looks like.”

The Buzz: You think that “Force Majeure” has been getting a lot of newspaper and magazine attention for a first novel? Credit the efforts of CAA, Random House and the privately hired publicity firm PMK. Oliver Stone will be executive producer of the movie version, already in development. Wagner will write and direct.

Who Was There: Wagner, Carrie Fisher, Ron Silver, Paul Bartel and lots of publicists, agents and journalists.

Dress Code: Work clothes. Those who went home before the party wore expensive jackets over jeans. The gravity-defying male hairstyles worn by the teen heartthrobs on “Beverly Hills 90210” are being adopted by the older generation in a somewhat deflated form.

Irony I: Funny that CAA would co-sponsor a party with Random House, considering that the publisher’s Turtle Bay subsidiary is preparing a book about Hollywood agencies that will purportedly attack some of CAA’s business practices. (CAA chief Michael Ovitz, by the way, did not make an appearance at the party.)

Irony II: Considering that Wagner portrays agents in his book as a particularly venal breed of car-phoning spirochetes, it might seem surprising to have Hollywood’s most powerful agency feting him within its doors. But Wagner is a CAA client--and, hey, business is business.

Favors: A table brimming with copies of the book was quickly depleted. “Is it out in paperback?” asked one man. “I’m going on vacation and I don’t want to have to carry something that heavy.”

Noted: No ashtrays at a publication party? In New York, the guests would riot, but in L.A., they just turn their used glasses into ashtrays.