Fiction: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

American Psycho is satirical look at the upper crust of New York's socialites. It is also a psychological thriller about the life of a yuppie Harvard grad named Patrick Bateman who is a homicidal maniac. Bateman narrates his day to day life over the course of a couple of years. He tells of every mundane detail including what brand shirt, pants, suits, shoes, etc, everyone, including himself, is wearing. He describes his murders with no emotion, just as he does everything else.


Bateman and his "friends" spend much of their time trying to get reservations at the best restaurants and clubs in town. They run in circles where identity isn't as important as appearance and who you know, and people are often mistaken for others. Because of this constant mistaken identity, it is hard to tell if Bateman is truly a homicidal killer or if he is just suffering from delusional psychotic daydreams.


I found this book to be excruciatingly boring for the vast majority of it. The repeated themes in this book were; video returns, the Patty Winters Show, Manolo Blahniks, bums, hard bodies and reservations. I understand that this was a satire about how superficial New York socialites are, however, there are only so many pages that should be dedicated to painfully detailed descriptions of clothing and discussions of "where to eat". The first two thirds of the book were uncreative with regard to the murder and sex scenes. It isn't until the last third of the book that things got interesting. The main character finally let loose his homicidal rage in very graphic and colorful detail that made me cringe.


On a scale of 1-4, I give this book a 1. If the last third of the book hadn't gotten better, I would not have rated this book at all. With that said though, please read this book for yourself and let me know what you think.


This book was published by Vintage Books, a Division of Random House.
ISBN 0-679-73577-1