Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and
short storyA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary
Brat PackThe expression "literary Brat Pack" refers to the three young, East-coast American authors, Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney, who emerged in USA in the 1980s...
, which also included
Tama JanowitzTama Janowitz is an American novelist and a short story writer. The 2005 September/October issue of Pages magazine listed her as one of the four "brat pack" authors, along with Bret Easton Ellis, Mark Lindquist and Jay McInerney.-Life:Her parents, a psychiatrist father, Julian Janowitz, and...
and
Jay McInerneyJohn Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City; Ransom; Story of My Life; Brightness Falls; and The Last of the Savages...
. He is a self-proclaimed
satiristSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style. Ellis employs a technique of linking novels with common, recurring characters.
Though Ellis made his debut at 21 with the controversial 1985 bestseller
Less Than Zero, a
zeitgeistZeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
novel about amoral young people in Los Angeles, the work he is most known for is his third novel, 1991's
American PsychoAmerican Psycho is a psychological thriller and satirical novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by the protagonist, serial killer and Manhattan businessman Patrick Bateman. The book's graphic violence and sexual content generated a great deal of...
. On its release, the literary establishment widely condemned the novel as overly violent and misogynist; though many petitions to ban the book saw Ellis dropped by
Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
, the resounding controversy made it a paperback bestseller for
Alfred A. KnopfAlfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
later that year. Four of Ellis' works have been made into films; notably,
Less Than Zero was rapidly adapted for screen, and a starkly different
Less Than Zero filmLess Than Zero is a 1987 American drama film loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same name. The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair and his friend Julian , who is also a drug addict...
was released in 1987, and
Mary HarronMary Harron is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter best known for her films I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.-Overview:...
's
adaptation of American PsychoAmerican Psycho is a 2000 cult thriller film directed by Mary Harron based on Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name. Though predominantly a psycho thriller, the film also blends elements of horror, satire, and black comedy...
was released to predominantly positive reviews in 2000. In later years, Ellis' novels have become increasingly
metafictionMetafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...
al. 2005's
Lunar ParkLunar Park is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis with elements of faux autobiography and pastiche. It was released by Knopf on August 16, 2005. It is notable for being the first book written by Ellis to use past tense narrative.-Plot summary:...
, a pseudo-memoir and ghost story, received positive reviews, and 2010's
Imperial BedroomsImperial Bedrooms is a novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis. Released on June 15, 2010, it is the sequel to Less Than Zero, Ellis' 1985 bestselling literary debut, which was shortly followed by a film adaptation in 1987. Imperial Bedrooms revisits Less Than Zeros self-destructive and...
, marketed as a sequel to
Less Than Zero, continues in this vein.
Work
Ellis' first novel,
Less Than Zero, a tale of disaffected, rich teenagers of Los Angeles, was praised by critics and sold well (50,000 copies in its first year). He moved back to New York City in 1987 for the publication of his second novel,
The Rules of AttractionThe Rules of Attraction is a dark comedy and satirical novel by Bret Easton Ellis published in 1987. The novel focuses on a handful of rowdy and often sexually promiscuous, spoiled Bohemian college students at a liberal arts college in 1980s New Hampshire, primarily focusing on three of them who...
, which follows a group of sexually promiscuous college students and sold fairly well, though Ellis admits he felt he had "fallen off", after the novel failed to match the success of his debut effort. His most controversial work is the graphically violent
American PsychoAmerican Psycho is a psychological thriller and satirical novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by the protagonist, serial killer and Manhattan businessman Patrick Bateman. The book's graphic violence and sexual content generated a great deal of...
. The book was intended to be published by
Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
, but they withdrew after external protests from groups such as the
National Organization for WomenThe National Organization for Women is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S...
(NOW) and many others due to the allegedly misogynistic nature of the book. The novel was later published by Vintage. Some consider this novel, whose protagonist,
Patrick BatemanPatrick Bateman is a fictional character, the antihero and narrator of the novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and its film adaptation. He has also briefly appeared in other Ellis novels.-Biography and profile:...
, is both a cartoonishly materialistic
yuppieYuppie is a term that refers to a member of the upper middle class or upper class in their 20s or 30s. It first came into use in the early-1980s and largely faded from American popular culture in the late-1980s, due to the 1987 stock market crash and the early 1990s recession...
and a serial killer, to be an example of
transgressive artTransgressive art refers to art forms that aim to transgress; i.e. to outrage or violate basic mores and sensibilities. The term transgressive was first used by American filmmaker Nick Zedd and his Cinema of Transgression in 1985...
.
American Psycho has achieved considerable cult status.
His collection of short stories,
The InformersThe Informers is a collection of short stories, seemingly linked by the same continuity, authored by American author Bret Easton Ellis. It was first published as a whole in 1994. Chapters 6 and 7, "Water from the Sun" and "Discovering Japan", were published separately in the UK by Picador in 2007...
, was published in 1994. It contains vignettes of wayward Los Angeles characters ranging from rock stars to vampires, mostly written while Ellis was in college, and so has more in common with the style of
Less Than Zero. Ellis has said that the stories in
The Informers were collected and released only to fulfill a contractual obligation after discovering that it would take far longer to complete his next novel than he'd intended. After years of struggling with it, Ellis released his fourth novel
GlamoramaGlamorama is a novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis. It was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1998. Unlike Ellis' previous novels, Glamorama is set in and satirizes the 1990s, specifically celebrity culture and consumerism...
in 1998.
Glamorama is set in the world of high fashion, following a male model who becomes entangled in a bizarre terrorist organization composed entirely of other models. The book plays with themes of media, celebrity, and political violence, and like its predecessor
American Psycho it uses surrealism to convey a sense of postmodern dread. Ellis's novel
Lunar ParkLunar Park is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis with elements of faux autobiography and pastiche. It was released by Knopf on August 16, 2005. It is notable for being the first book written by Ellis to use past tense narrative.-Plot summary:...
(2005), uses the form of a celebrity memoir to tell a ghost story about the novelist "Bret Easton Ellis" and his chilling experiences in the apparently haunted home he shares with his wife and son. In keeping with his usual style, Ellis mixes absurd comedy with a bleak and violent vision.
Imperial BedroomsImperial Bedrooms is a novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis. Released on June 15, 2010, it is the sequel to Less Than Zero, Ellis' 1985 bestselling literary debut, which was shortly followed by a film adaptation in 1987. Imperial Bedrooms revisits Less Than Zeros self-destructive and...
(2010) follows the characters of
Less Than Zero 25 years later; it combines the violence of
American Psycho and the postmodernity of
Lunar Park with the unaltered ennui of Ellis'
debut novelA debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
.
Biography
Ellis was born to a wealthy California household. His father, who he said was abusive, became the basis of Ellis's most well-known character
Patrick BatemanPatrick Bateman is a fictional character, the antihero and narrator of the novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and its film adaptation. He has also briefly appeared in other Ellis novels.-Biography and profile:...
, and the frosty relationship between Victor and his father in
Glamorama is based in part on this as well. He attended
Bennington CollegeBennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
, where he met and befriended fellow writers
Donna TarttDonna Tartt is an American writer and author of the novels The Secret History and The Little Friend . She won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003.-Early life:...
,
Jonathan LethemJonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
, Francis Lombard and Joseph McLaughlin, none of whom were aware of his literary aspirations. After rising to fame with
Less Than Zero in 1985, Ellis became closely associated and good friends with fellow Brat Pack writer
Jay McInerneyJohn Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City; Ransom; Story of My Life; Brightness Falls; and The Last of the Savages...
: the two became known as the "toxic twins". The writer became a pariah for a time following
American Psycho (1991), which later became a cult hit, more so after its
2000 movie adaptationAmerican Psycho is a 2000 cult thriller film directed by Mary Harron based on Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name. Though predominantly a psycho thriller, the film also blends elements of horror, satire, and black comedy...
. It is now regarded as Ellis'
magnum opusMagnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...
and is favorably looked upon by academics.
The Informers (1994) was offered to his publisher during
Glamoramas long writing history. Ellis wrote a screenplay for The Rules of Attraction
s film adaptationThe Rules of Attraction is a 2002 satirical dark comedy film directed by Roger Avary, based on the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. It stars James van der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Ian Somerhalder, Jessica Biel, and Kip Pardue.-Plot:...
which was not used. Ellis records a fictionalized version of his life story up until this point in the first chapter of Lunar Park
(2005). After the death of his lover Michael Wade Kaplan, Ellis was spurred to finish Lunar Park
and inflected it with a new tone of wistfulness. In Lunar Park
, through his fictional alter ego and the character's relationship with his own son, Ellis resolved some of the issues surrounding his father.
Later, Ellis was approached by young screenwriter Nicholas JareckiNicholas Jarecki is an American writer and filmmaker, best known for his 2005 documentary The Outsider.A native of New York City, Jarecki attended New York University's film school and graduated at age 19....
to adapt The Informers into a film; the script they co-wrote was cut from 150 to 94 pages and taken from Jarecki to give to Australian director
Gregor JordanGregor Jordan is an Australian film director.Jordan's films include Two Hands , Buffalo Soldiers , and Ned Kelly . He has also directed the concert video These Days: Live in Concert by Australian rock band Powderfinger.His film Two Hands won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Direction...
, whose light-on-humor vision of the film was met with unanimously negative reviews when the film was released in 2009. Despite setbacks as a screenwriter, Ellis teamed up with acclaimed director
Gus Van SantGus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
in 2009 to adapt the
Vanity FairVanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
article "The Golden Suicides" into a film of the same name, depicting the paranoid final days and suicides of celebrity artists Theresa DuncanTheresa Duncan was an American game designer, blogger, filmmaker and critic.- Life :Theresa Lee Duncan was born in Lapeer, Michigan, near Detroit to Donnie and Mary Duncan. She had a sister, Deanna and a brother, Scott...
and Jeremy BlakeJeremy Blake was an American digital artist and painter. His work included projected DVD installations, Type C prints, and collaborative film projects.-Biography:...
. In 2010, Ellis released the sequel to his debut novelA debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
, in the form of Imperial Bedrooms
. Ellis wrote it following his own return to LA and fictionalises his work on the film adaptation of The Informers
, from the perspective of Clay. Positive reviews felt it was a culmination of the themes began respectively in Less Than Zero
, American Psycho
and Lunar Park. Negative reviews noted the novel's rehashed themes and listless writing.
Personal life
When asked an interview in 2002 whether or not he was gay, Ellis explained that he does not identify himself as gay or straight. He explained that he is comfortable to be thought of as gay, bisexual or heterosexual and that he enjoys playing with his persona, identifying variously as gay, straight and bi to different people over the years.
In a 1999 interview, the author puts forward that his reluctance to definitively label his sexuality (in his own words, he is "very coy and weird about it") is for "artistic reasons", because "if people knew that I was straight, they'd read [my books] in a different way. If they knew I was gay, Psycho would be read as a different book." In an interview with
Robert F. ColemanRobert F. Coleman is an American mathematician, and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His primary research area is in number theory, with specific interest in p-adic analysis and arithmetic geometry...
, Bret refers to his as an "indeterminate sexuality", and said "any other interviewer out there will get a different answer and it just depends on the mood I am in". In a 2011 interview with
James BrownJames Brown is a British journalist. He is best known for creating the modern men's magazine market with the launch of his title Loaded in 1994, a magazine that was said to define a generation...
, Ellis again states that his answers to questions about his sexuality have varied from interviewer to interviewer, citing an example where his reluctance to refuse the label "bi" had him labelled as such by a
DetailsDetails is an American monthly men's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications, founded in 1982. Though primarily a magazine devoted to fashion and lifestyle, Details also features reports on relevant social and political issues.-History:...
interviewer. "I think the last time I slept with a woman was five or six years ago, so the bi thing can only be played out so long," he clarifies. "But I still use it, I still say it." Responding to
Dan SavageDaniel Keenan "Dan" Savage is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. Its tone is frank in its discussion of sexuality, often humorous, and hostile to social conservatives, as in...
's
It Gets BetterIt Gets Better is an Internet-based project founded in the United States by Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller on September 21, 2010, in response to the suicides of teenagers who were bullied because they were gay or because their peers suspected that they were gay...
campaign, aimed at preventing
suicide among LGBT youthResearchers have found that suicide among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth is comparatively higher than among the general population...
, Ellis
tweetedTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
"Not to bum everyone out, but can we get a reality check here? It gets worse."
In his semi-autobiographical novel Lunar Park
, the fictional Bret continues both transient affairs and long-term relationships with men and women at various points in the novel. Lunar Park
was dedicated to his lover, Michael Wade Kaplan, and Ellis's father, Robert Ellis, about whom he speaks openly in interviews promoting the novel. Robert Ellis died in 1992. In one interview, Ellis describes feeling a liberation, in the completion of the novel, that allowed him to come to terms with unresolved issues regarding his father. In the "author Q&A" for Lunar Park
on the Random House website, Ellis comments on his relationship with his father, and says he feels that his father was a "tough case" who left him damaged. Having grown older and having "mellow[ed] out", Ellis describes how his opinion of his father changed since 15 years ago when writing Glamorama
(in which the central conspiracy concerns the relationship of a father and son). Even earlier in his career, Ellis based the character of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho on his father. In a 2010 interview, however, he claims to have "lied" about this explanation. Explaining that "Patrick Bateman was about me", he confesses "I didn’t want to finally own up to the responsibility of being Patrick Bateman, so I laid it on my father, I laid it on Wall Street." In reality, the book had been "about me at the time, and I wrote about all my rage and feelings". To James Brown, he clarified Bateman was based on "My father a little bit but I was living that lifestyle, my father wasn’t in New York the same age as Patrick Bateman, living in the same building, going to the same places that Patrick Bateman was going to".
Fictional setting and recurring characters
Ellis often uses recurring characters and settings. Major characters in one novel may become minor ones in the next, or vice versa. Camden College, a fictional
New EnglandNew England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
liberal artsThe term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...
college, is frequently referenced. It is based on
Bennington CollegeBennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
, which Ellis himself attended, where he met future novelist
Jonathan LethemJonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
and befriended fellow writers
Donna TarttDonna Tartt is an American writer and author of the novels The Secret History and The Little Friend . She won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003.-Early life:...
and
Jill EisenstadtJill Eisenstadt is an American novelist, screenwriter, teacher and freelance journalist.Eisenstadt was born in Queens, New York and attended Bennington College, graduating in 1985. She was considered part of the 'Literary Brat Pack' whose members included Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, and...
. In Tartt's
The Secret HistoryThe Secret History, the first novel by Mississippi-born writer Donna Tartt, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. A 75,000 print order was made for the first edition , and the book became a bestseller.Set in New England, The Secret History tells the story of a closely knit group of six classics...
(1992), her version of Bennington is given as "Hampden College", although there are oblique connections between it and Ellis' Rules of Attraction
. Eisenstat and Lethem, however, use 'Camden' in From Rockaway
(1987) and The Fortress of SolitudeThe Fortress of Solitude is a 2003 semi-autobiographical novel by Jonathan Lethem set in Brooklyn and spanning the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. It follows two teenage friends, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, one white and one black, who discover a magic ring...
(2003), respectively. Though his three major settings are Vermont, Los Angeles and New York, he doesn't think of these novels as about these places; they are intentionally more universal than that.
Camden is introduced in Less Than Zero
, where it is mentioned that both protagonist Clay and minor character Daniel attend it. In The Rules of Attraction
(1987), where Camden is the setting, Clay (referred to as "The Guy from L.A." before being properly introduced) is a minor character who narrates one chapter; ironically, he longs for the Californian beach, where in Ellis' previous novel he had longed to return to college. On "the guy from L.A.'s door someone wrote "Rest In Peace Called"; R.I.P., or Rip, is Clay's dealer in Less Than Zero
; Clay also says that Blair from Less than Zero
sent him a letter saying she thinks Rip was murdered. Main character Sean Bateman's older brother PatrickPatrick Bateman is a fictional character, the antihero and narrator of the novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and its film adaptation. He has also briefly appeared in other Ellis novels.-Biography and profile:...
narrates one chapter of the novel; he will be the infamous central character of Ellis' next novel, American Psycho
. Ellis includes a reference to Tartt's forthcoming Secret History
in the form of a passing mention of "that weird Classics group... probably roaming the countryside sacrificing farmers and performing pagan rituals". There is also an allusion to the main character from Eidenstadt's From Rockaway.
In American Psycho
(1991), Patrick's brother Sean appears briefly. Paul Denton and Victor Johnson from The Rules of Attraction
are both mentioned; on seeing Paul, Patrick wonders if "maybe he was on that cruise a long time ago, one night last March. If that's the case, I'm thinking, I should get his telephone number or, better yet, his address." Camden is referred to as both Sean's college and the college a minor character named Vanden is going to. Vanden was referred to (but never appeared) in both Less Than Zero
and The Rules of Attraction
. Passages from "Less Than Zero" reappear, almost verbatim, here, with Patrick replacing Clay as narrator. Patrick also makes repeated references to Jami GertzJami Beth Gertz is an American actress. Gertz is known for her early roles in the films Sixteen Candles, Crossroads, The Lost Boys, Less Than Zero, the 1980s TV series Square Pegs with Sarah Jessica Parker, and 1996's Twister, as well as for her role as Judy Miller in the CBS sitcom Still Standing...
, the actress who portrays Blair in the 1987 film adaptation of Less Than Zero
. Allison Poole from Jay McInerneyJohn Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City; Ransom; Story of My Life; Brightness Falls; and The Last of the Savages...
's 1988 novel Story of My LifeStory of My Life is a novel published in 1988 by the American author Jay McInerney.-Plot and characters:The novel is narrated in the first-person from the point of view of Alison Poole, "an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year old." Alison is originally from Virginia and...
appears as a torture victim of Patrick's. 1994's The InformersThe Informers is a collection of short stories, seemingly linked by the same continuity, authored by American author Bret Easton Ellis. It was first published as a whole in 1994. Chapters 6 and 7, "Water from the Sun" and "Discovering Japan", were published separately in the UK by Picador in 2007...
features a much-younger Timothy Price, one of Patrick's co-workers in American Psycho
, who narrates one chapter. One of the central characters, Graham, buys concert tickets from Less Than Zero
s Julian, and his sister Susan goes on to say that Julian sells heroin and is a male prostitute (as shown in Zero
). Alana and Blair from Zero
are also friends of Susan's. Letters to Sean Bateman to a Camden College girl named Anne visiting grandparents in LA comprise the eighth chapter.
Patrick Bateman appears briefly in Glamorama
(1998); Glamoramas main characters Victor Ward and Lauren Hynde were first introduced in
The Rules of Attraction. As a in-joke reference to Bateman being portrayed by
Christian BaleChristian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....
in the then-in-production 2000 film adaptation, the actor himself briefly appears as a background character. The book also includes a spy called Russell who is physically identical to Bale, and at one point in the novel impersonates him. Jamie Fields, who has a major role in the book, was first briefly mentioned by Victor in
The Rules of Attraction. Bertrand, Sean and Mitchell, all from
The Rules of Attraction, appear in a Camden
flashbacksFlashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
and several other
Rules characters are referenced. McInerney's Alison Poole makes her second appearance in an Ellis novel as Victor's mistress.
Lunar Park (2005) is not set in the same "universe" as Ellis' other novels, but contains a similar multitude of references and allusions. All the author's previous works are heavily referenced, in keeping with the book-within-a-book structure. Jay McInerney cameos. Donald Kimball from
American Psycho questions Ellis on a series of
American Psycho-inspired murders, Mitchell Allen from
Rules lives next door to and went to college with Ellis (Ellis even recalls his affair with Paul Denton, alluded to in
Rules), and Ellis recalls a tempestuous relationship with Blair from
Zero.
Imperial Bedrooms (2010) establishes the conceit that the Clay depicted in
Zero is not the same Clay who narrates
Bedrooms. In the world of
Imperial Bedrooms,
Zero was the close-to-non-fiction work of an author friend of Clay's, and its film adaptation (featuring actors
James SpaderJames Todd Spader is an American actor best known for his eccentric roles in movies such as Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Crash, Stargate, and Secretary...
, Jami Gertz and Robert Downey, Jr.) exists within the world of the novel, too.
See also
External links