Spoiler tag in case anyone wants to read Lunar Park, I guess?
I just read Bret Easton Ellis' Lunar Park and the best way I can describe it is Bojack S5 in book-form. A deeply-traumatised, severely morally questionable media personality tries to be better than his abusive upbringing but only succeeds in allowing his past to hurt everyone around him. Part drug trip and/or ghost story, but mostly an anguished desperation to be better without any results.
I now want to read a million other books with this exact vibe.
Looking for a mix and match of:
Some kind of spec fic/horror/magical realism angle.
A layer of sustained metaphor/meta narrative.
A protagonist who isn't a good person (whether they improve or not is unimportant to me).
Some point of empathy (past trauma, poor familiar relations etc)
Ideally some relation to Hollywood/entertainment industry.
Some ambiguity about what's actually happening in the narrative.
Really strained family dynamics is a bonus.
I know this is soooo specific, but I'm honestly floored that Lunar Park exists and figure Ellis can't be the only asshole to ever think 'huh, I kinda deserve to be haunted for this.'
by lochnesspornstar