Brett Easton Ellis Revisits American Psycho

Posted on September 30, 2005

Here's an example of a great save by a journalist. Journalist Peter Madsen of The Daily Iowan conducted an in-depth phone interview with Brett Easton Ellis (American Psycho, Less Than Zero). But when he got back to the office, he discovered that his tape recoreder had totally failed. Facing the wrath of his editor and his possible firing, Madsen drove to a booksigning Ellis was doing and tape-recorded the audience Q and A, in which Ellis talks about his work. He was asked by the audience which of his books is his most autobiographical.

Ellis: They're all autobiographical in a lot of ways, but if I have to look back, I would have to say that American Psycho is probably the most autobiographical of all the novels. And I know that causes consternation and people getting upset... I was writing about my dad, I was writing about myself, I was writing about a lifestyle that I was living that wasn't really unlike Patrick Bateman's. I mean, I didn't have all that money, but the yuppie movement was huge at that time in New York - I mean, everyone was trapped in it. If you go out to clubs, everyone was wearing suits. What can I tell you? It was that kind of era. But it was also a portrait of self-loathing and anger. I had gotten out of school [Bennington] and came to the city, and even though I had a career, I had been cocooned for about 22 years. And when I got out, I said, 'My god, this is society? This is what society demands of me? This is what it means to be a man? This is what I have to do? This is what the real world is about?' And it was shocking, and it was upsetting, and the punky little nihilist in me wanted to complain about it: the consumerism and life in the '80's, Reagan to a lesser degree, and Wall Street and yuppies, but I was also there.

Now that's what we call creative thinking. Brett Easton Ellis' new book is Lunar Park.