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Q&A | May 1, 2012

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Describe your new book: This book is the story of my life — the ups, the downs, and the music. If someone were to write your biography, what... Continue »
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    My Cross to Bear

    Gregg Allman 9780062112033
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American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis

American Psycho Cover

ISBN13: 9780679735779
ISBN10: 0679735771
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

Review:

"The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes....[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock....He has forced us to look at intolerable material, and so few novelists try for that anymore." Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

Review:

"Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel....The novelist's function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he's done it brilliantly....A seminal book." Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

Review:

"A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitions, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book." Katherine Dunn

Review:

"A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it's the return of one's rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho....There is a fever to the life of this book that is, in my reading, unknown in American literature." Michael Tolkin, author of The Player

Review:

"This book is not pleasure reading, but neither is it pornography. It is a serious novel that comments on a society that has become inured to suffering." Library Journal

Review:

"American Psycho's social criticism is purely sophomoric — horrifying only for its author's utter lack of narrative skill. To say that Ellis creates two-dimensional characters would be to flatter his understanding of human nature. (Grade: F)" Gene Lyons, Entertainment Weekly

Synopsis:

Now a major motion picture from Lion's Gate Films starring Christian Bale (Metroland), Chloe Sevigny (The Last Days of Disco), Jared Leto (My So Called Life), and Reese Witherspoon (Cruel Intentions), and directed by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol).

In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

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About the Author

Bret Easton Ellis is the author of Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, The Informers, and Glamorama. He was born in 1964 and raised in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Bennington College and lives in New York City.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 5 comments:
soapboxinmymind, August 13, 2010 (view all comments by soapboxinmymind)
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.
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Laurelu79, March 25, 2009 (view all comments by Laurelu79)
An amazing portrayal of human aggression and the depravity in the race for materialism. The most striking part of the main character is how Ellis manages to make the reader relate to him, as disturbing as that may be. I would recommend this book to anyone who isn't too squeamish.
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nena_chaz, February 14, 2009 (view all comments by nena_chaz)
this book is amazing its CRAZY good!!!!!!
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780679735779
Author:
Ellis, Bret Easton
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Location:
New York :
Subject:
General
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
Women
Subject:
New york (n.y.)
Subject:
Horror
Subject:
Movie-TV Tie-In
Subject:
Horror tales
Subject:
Wall street
Subject:
Horror - General
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
Serial murderers
Subject:
General Fiction
Copyright:
1991
Edition Number:
1st ed.
Edition Description:
Trade paper
Series:
Vintage Contemporaries
Series Volume:
9335
Publication Date:
March 6, 1991
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
416
Dimensions:
8.04x5.30x.90 in. .79 lbs.
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Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Horror » General
Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
Languages » Foreign Languages » Spanish » Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

American Psycho Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$8.50 In Stock
Product details 416 pages Vintage Books USA - English 9780679735779 Reviews:
"Review" by , "The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes....[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock....He has forced us to look at intolerable material, and so few novelists try for that anymore."
"Review" by , "Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel....The novelist's function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he's done it brilliantly....A seminal book."
"Review" by , "A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitions, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book."
"Review" by , "A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it's the return of one's rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho....There is a fever to the life of this book that is, in my reading, unknown in American literature."
"Review" by , "This book is not pleasure reading, but neither is it pornography. It is a serious novel that comments on a society that has become inured to suffering."
"Review" by , "American Psycho's social criticism is purely sophomoric — horrifying only for its author's utter lack of narrative skill. To say that Ellis creates two-dimensional characters would be to flatter his understanding of human nature. (Grade: F)"
"Synopsis" by , Now a major motion picture from Lion's Gate Films starring Christian Bale (Metroland), Chloe Sevigny (The Last Days of Disco), Jared Leto (My So Called Life), and Reese Witherspoon (Cruel Intentions), and directed by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol).

In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
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