Synopses & Reviews
In this seductive and chillingly nihilistic novel, Bret Easton Ellis, the author of
American Psycho, returns to Los Angeles, the city whose moral badlands he portrayed unforgettably in
Less Than Zero. This time is the early eighties. The characters go to the same schools and eat at the same restaurants. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. They have sex with the same boys and girls and buy from the same dealers. In short, they are connected in the only way people can be in that city.
Dirk sees his best friend killed in a desert car wreck, then rifles through his pockets for a last joint before the ambulance comes. Cheryl, a wannabe newscaster, chides her future stepdaughter, “You're tan but you don't look happy.” Jamie is a clubland carnivore with a taste for human blood. As rendered by Ellis, their interactions compose a chilling, fascinating, and outrageous descent into the abyss beneath L.A.'s gorgeous surfaces.
Review
"The Informers is full of morbid Gothic sensibility, sick jokes and outrageous detail... hilarious... ambitious... It [has] sharp observations and impeccably controlled prose." Newsday
Review
"With a canny journalist's eye for detail and dialogue, Ellis's storytelling carries the complete lack of sentiment and empathy of a seasoned comic novelist." LA Times
Review
"The Informers shows the work of a writer at the peak of his powers, deeply concerned with the moral decline of our society. The book takes us from the first to the seventh circles of hell, from Salinger to de Sade." Will Self
Review
"This tedious successor to American Psycho, a patchwork of interrelated vignettes about a set of filthy rich L.A. families in the early 1980s, weds Ellis's over-the-top if one-dimensional satirical style to the sensational hedonism characteristic of Danielle Steel and the spiritual malaise of Douglas Coupland." Publishers Weekly
Review
"The Informers has fewer gruesome scenes than American Psycho, and its affectlessness renders them less powerful. Still, this is a disturbing book that will be requested by patrons familiar with Ellis's work." Library Journal
Synopsis
This powerful and poignant novel of L.A., from the author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho, depicts a generation's overwhelming dissatisfaction with the way things are, and its insistence on remaining as detached and isolated as possible.
Synopsis
The basis of the major motion picture starring Billy Bob Thornton, KimBasinger and Mickey Rourke, The Informers is a seductive and chillingly nihilistic novel, in which Bret Easton Ellis, returns to Los Angeles, the city whose moral badlands he portrayed so unforgettably in Less Than Zero. This time is the early eighties. The characters go to the same schools and eat at the same restaurants. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. They have sex with the same boys and girls and buy from the same dealers. In short, they are connected in the only way people can be in that city.
Dirk sees his best friend killed in a desert car wreck, then rifles through his pockets for a last joint before the ambulance comes. Cheryl, a wannabe newscaster, chides her future stepdaughter, "You're tan but you don't look happy." Jamie is a clubland carnivore with a taste for human blood. As rendered by Ellis, their interactions compose a chilling, fascinating, and outrageous descent into the abyss beneath L.A.'s gorgeous surfaces.
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero comes a nihilistic novel set in the early eighties that portrays a chilling descent into the abyss beneath L.A.'s gorgeous surfaces. - "Skillfully accomplishes its goal of depicting a modern moral wasteland.... Arguably Ellis's best." --The Boston Globe The basis of the major motion picture starring Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke, The Informers is a seductive and chillingly nihilistic novel, in which Bret Easton Ellis, returns to Los Angeles, the city whose moral badlands he portrayed so unforgettably in Less Than Zero.
This time is the early eighties. The characters go to the same schools and eat at the same restaurants. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. They have sex with the same boys and girls and buy from the same dealers. In short, they are connected in the only way people can be in that city.
Dirk sees his best friend killed in a desert car wreck, then rifles through his pockets for a last joint before the ambulance comes. Cheryl, a wannabe newscaster, chides her future stepdaughter, "You're tan but you don't look happy." Jamie is a clubland carnivore with a taste for human blood.
Look for Bret Easton Ellis's new novel, The Shards, coming in January.
About the Author
Bret Easton Ellis is the author of four previous novels and a collection of stories, which have been translated into twenty-seven languages. He divides his time between Los Angeles and New York City.