Finally gotten to reading this particular one, Ellis's "American Psycho". Like with Mendal W. Johnson's sole novel "Let's Go Play at the Adams'", it's either loved or outright hated given it's very extreme and graphic content.
Moving amongst the young and the trendy in Manhattan in the 1980s is one Patrick Bateman. He is young, handsome and even well educated. He makes a fortune on Wall Street by day, but by night he spends it in ways that a normal person cannot even fathom.
Through murder and torture Bateman expresses his true self, prefiguring a horror of apocalyptic proportions that no society can never bear to even confront.
When I'm introduced to Bateman (who's also the narrator) in the first chapter, he is charming and also successful Wall Street type. Or that's how he appears on the surface. Deep inside he is hollow and miserable, despite having everything that he could ask for. Always obsessing over his appearance, loving no one else except himself, and fixating, even listing expensive items from expensive luxury brands and luxury restaurants, even listing the prices from time. And of course he's also a serial killer.
The insanity that eventually follows in the book starts off slowly. The atrocious murders that Bateman commits get more and more brutal with each chapter, and he also starts to hallucinate as well. But then after a while I begin to question it, since some of the murders he commits are so absurdly cartoonish in their brutality, and I kind of wonder if he is on the brink of psychotic break, or worse, is already gone off the deep end. It's pretty dark and brutal psychological horror/satire that's definitely good, but not going to be for everyone.
This one is one of at least three books Ellis wrote that has a very heavy horror element (though "American Psycho" is full on horror), since much of the books he has done in his career are generally satires. Those other two are "Lunar Park" and "The Shards" which is his most recent one. Probably would want to give those a whirl if I ever get the chance.
by i-the-muso-1968