"The implication of Fame in this value-warped society is: you've made it. You and your talents are so bright, you are somehow both physically and spiritually light-years beyond all us bone-sucking hacks. I yowl in disgust at this bias."A columnist for both the San Francisco Examiner and Salon, Cintra Wilson is a ruthless pop culture barometer saying what everyone thinks but no one can say about modern celebrity culture. And no one can say it quite like her. Cherished for her "laser-light prose," and for being "more fun than an electric eel in a pool filled with sycophants," Cintra gets to the heart of our humiliating fascination with celebrity and all its preposterous trappings.In A Massive Swelling, she takes on every sacred cow imaginable, toppling icons as diverse as Barbra Streisand and the diva machine, Michael Jackson's sorry state and Bruce Willis, because he's Bruce Willis. Events like the Oscars and even athletic jamborees are part of a fame virus that infects us all.

Wilson's scathing and irresistible dissection of Las Vegas as "The Death Star of Entertainment" pulses with her enlightened rejection of all things false and vain and egotistical. Written with her trademark zeal and intelligence, A Massive Swelling is the book Cintra Wilson's devoted fans have been waiting for.