American Psycho (Paperback)

No matter the genre, a novel is successful if it makes the reader think, pause and reassess the world. Ellis' novel offers a satirical look into the pampered New York elite through the eyes of an original and sociopath main character.

What Works:

Narration: The first-person narration captures the reader instantly, introducing Patrick's innermost thoughts and fastidious rituals, such as cleaning his body with more products than your local Rite-Aid. Patrick takes the reader along to trendy, $25-cover clubs, scouting for "hardbodies" and lamenting about cheap drugs sold on the dance floor. Ellis has made a wise choice using Patrick as the narrator. As you read, you are engaged, participating. What is interesting is how the reader is both involved, and detached simultaneously (bringing me to the next point...)

Characters: Are sufficiently flat and underdeveloped, working both to keep the reader from empathizing too greatly with a victim, while also serving to support the satirical edge that in life, nobody gets too close. Patrick's monotonous lifestyle of work, working out, renting videos and spotting Les Miserables posters is all too familiar. He (as so many other characters in the book) cannot tell one acquaintance from another. Everyone in Patrick's world looks alike, corporate paper dolls with trophy wives/ lovers.

Structure: Easton uses run-on sentences and fragments to simulate the breakdown of Bateman's mind. Some chapters will end with an incomplete thought, others will explode with angry stream-of-consciousness.

Satire: The violence in the novel is not simply a gruesome, gratuitous tool. Granted, Bateman conceives of some of the most "innovative" murder scenes around, yet Bateman is raging against his deadened society, trying to "feel something." Bateman's actions mock everything our capitalistic society holds dear--wealth, status, the rat race, the American dream.

What Doesn't Work:

Real or Illusion? Readers wonder if Ellis has created a scenario where all of the events are completely fabricated in Bateman's mind. Some ambiguity in the plot leads to this conclusion--a maid cleaning his apartment after a slaughter and "not noticing anything," dry cleaners ignoring repeated bloodstains on dress shirts, a realtor selling an acquaintance's apartment after Bateman left a grisly tableau behind (which is later inexplicably cleaned & unreported to police--by whom?) This uncertainty may frustrate you.

So now when I hear "It's so violent, too graphic, what's the point?" I wonder if it refers to the innovative novel, American Psycho, or perhaps life itself? You decide. Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Ellis, but very much on my mind since I purchased it off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.