I’ve read all BEE’s novels! Saved the best for last (except Glamorama had a better aesthetic). The cadence is so polished, sharp like a blood diamond. This is autofiction where the author discusses his famous works like American Psycho and how his success helped him escape his realtor father who was “perpetually dementedly furious” despite a palm tree and poolside lifestyle. Dog-beating and ever-belittling in a smart suit, he was the inspiration for Patrick Bateman.

A fun factoid is how even Bret’s grandfather couldn’t stand his son’s curdled attitude so in spite funded Bret’s Camden tuition where he wrote his international bestseller Less Than Zero as an assignment he finished on a crystal meth binge. The success of such immediately launched him as a pop culture icon, getting to rub elbows with Madonna and Tom Cruise and turn a slew of his books into movies. He becomes part of the literary brat pack who writes in shards about druggies, Armani-clad and Cristal swigging outcasts.

I’m not sure how much of the arrogant tone is satire or to match his characters or to be read more matter-of-fact in how the press and famefuckers viewed him. Of course the vast majority of this is humorous, conversation is always clever but realistic banter, with less guarded coolness than his typical cast of trendy apathoids.

Into the details of his life, he receives a $500,000 advance for American Psycho, a fifth of which immediately went to drugs and lavish parties. His publisher treated him like a rock star, making claw over fist off him. He (and this is where we delve into fiction) gets involved with a model named Jayne who intentionally impregnates herself to lock him down despite his insistence to use contraception or break up. He fathers another kid six years later but he remains steadfast in staying estranged during about a decade of Hollywood degeneracy. During this stressful time for all involved, he gains 40 pounds and loses it in a few weeks, and keeps volleying such a difference.

While penning my fav book of his, Glamorama about model terrorists, he consumes so much crack, smack, and vodka that he dies a few times on tour. He gives sarcastic answers to the press about being gay vs bi and antagonizes bookstore employees in paranoid ramblings—thinking they’re lions, so he bars himself in presidential suites, gorging on cool ranch Doritos ‘til he throws up, crying that he’s old at 35. By the time the American Psycho movie hits screens, he’s blown his millions on medical bills from partying.

Once he gets clean, he rejoins Jayne to rebuild their family, though his dissociation and cravings remain—Not so tragically for the most part but his intoxicated tendencies do a good job of giving the story realism, suspense, and obvious metaphorical value once supernatural things seem to happen. Taking a step back in a post 9/11 world, Bret infiltrates suburbia with his new wife, in couples counseling within weeks and using co-eds and that powdered white in moderation since he’s now a professor of creative writing, which is really a groupie circle for him to pluck from. Yet some of these admirers seem to be following him and spoofing his characters. The tone and family setting is pretty bright yet ironic.

Though it’s to be taken literally at times, his father and characters haunt him, missing boys plague his periphery, and police say some local killings are close to those that appear in American Psycho. I’m not much of a horror or paranormal person, but the laughably creepy Furbies, irksome step kids, strong Stephen King influence, and all the satire are enough to keep me thoroughly engaged as a realist reader.

No tengas hijos.

A friend of mine who works for a magazine in New York told me they asked Bret Easton Ellis if he wanted to write for this magazine, and if so, what would he like to do? "DVD Reviews." No hesitation on his part.

I read a short remembrance of Tom Cruise in the late 80's by Bret a while back in Rolling Stone - it was really good. He writes well for magazines. The high and salient points come quickly and clearly. The man does not fiddle-faddle.

I recognized that same tabloid style in Lunar Park, which is a suburban gothic horror story. The author is playing himself here, and he is beset variously by alcoholism, drugs, a murder in the next county, his own literary history, his tranquilized and sullen adopted son, an equally sullen dog, the ghost of his father, and a monstrous and changing house.

It's hard to say, many months after I've read this, how it all resolves or fits together, but I can tell you that the book reads quickly, is frequently funny, grotesque, horrifying, and never deep, and it will definitely not make you feel good about yourself. Or the author.

The first 100 or so pages of this book really weren’t doing it for me, I found it self righteous and quite frankly, boring and lame. I expected more from an author as clever as Ellis. Well I continued to read and I am now eating my words, once this book got full steam at about the 150 mark, it really took of and became something brilliant.

It’s a horror novel really, a damn good one at that. Like all of his stuff, it’s completely self-aware and poking fun at itself, and when you consider that Mr Ellis himself is the main character, and that this is a faux memoir, well I think you really need to take your hat off to an author that is able to do that with a book and it not be an absolute mess.

I think it’s a certain kind of marvelous. A truly unique book unlike anything I’ve ever read or will ever read I suspect.

Wow, actually really not very good.

First off I'm feeling a bit baited-and-switched. I should have done my homework, but the edition I picked up and browsed in the English-language section of a Copenhagen bookstore gave every indication of being some kind of sincere memoir. The first twenty or so pages of this book seemed to be exactly that, and I had just gotten really curious about Ellis' life, but in Copenhagen a cup of coffee costs ten dollars so I don't even want to know what Lunar Park sells for.

But then, later on in my trip, I realized I could just e-purchase the e-book version on my Epple ePad for less than the price of a cup of coffee. Thanks, future! So I did that, and on a train from Copenhagen to Siegen I dug in ...

... and realized that no, this book I just bought isn't the story of Bret Easton Ellis' life, this is some squished-together combination of a James T. Frey-style false fantasy memoir and a really poor Steven King impersonation.

Ellis' signature detachedness really fucks him up here, because as he (eventually) undertakes a ghost story, crossed with a demon story crossed with some other scary story -- there are three (3) different diabolical evils that show up in his life at the same time, and it's never really explained how they'r related -- and as the author Ellis describes the character Ellis groping through a trademark drug haze to come to grips with the threat to his trademark overfunded and mood-stabilized family, and as he's sitting there describing stuff that's supposed to be scary, it's not once the least bit frightening. Really it's kind of awkward watching it fall so flat.

There are some good bits. The tribe of the western rich that Ellis followed through school and into banking has here grown older and began to raise families, while the fictional Ellis is trying to "start over" by marrying his old girlfriend and masquerading as a yuppie parent. The (ostensible) author Ellis describes exquisitely the weirdness of what privileged people and their children call "normal" these days. His observations on that level have always been brilliant.

But then there's a whole lot of suck. For the whole final third he's just trying, trying, trying to build a sense of dread, foreboding, uncertainty ... all those things that good horror writers know how to do. And he's failing, failing, failing. He likes to telegraph little telling factoids (chilling factoids!) to foreshadow the upcoming misc horrors, but he refuses to be subtle -- he keeps backing up and explaining exactly why the factoids are so chilling.

Sometimes authors write not knowing what happens next, and the not knowing infects the writing with a tension and mystery. But this is a case of someone stringing together a lot of scary horror story scenes that don't quite link up, and then trying to bury that mess under another mess of more and more mystery and strangeness, hoping all along that there's an ending in there somewhere, but the final revelations are pretty mild and pointless: your estranged dad is haunting you! But really he's just trying to warn you that you're trapped in a badly plotted book.

I know Bret Easton Ellis can write much better books than this. This seems like a weekend meth project. "I know! I'll write a Stephen King novel ... about me!" Maybe he's low on drug money. It certainly seems written for Hollywood. I don't doubt he's already sold the film rights, and if that film gets made Ellis will have one more meta-notch in his meta-belt. But frankly this book is a disappointment. I give him credit for trying something different, but when writers get so big that they can push their mistakes past their editors, through their publishers and onto the public, it's time to move on.

only a deranged person could write something like this, and i respect that

Makes me want to forgive my father and end cycles

Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park does not deviate from his previous controversial works. The novel explores the subject matter that has made him famous: drug abuse, debauchery, and paranoia. Ellis writes very fluid and engaging prose that makes it hard to ignore his talent as a novelist. But he chases topics and material that are overly disturbing at times. He certainly has a dark vision of humanity, where people are lost, neurotic, and inebriated.

In Lunar Park, he dares to fictionalize himself, and he does so very successfully. The Ellis character in the novel is by no means an exact replica of Ellis the writer. But the novel’s character mesmerizes and fascinates even in all his bad behavior. Ellis the writer provides an exceptional portrayal of the clinical development of paranoia that the Ellis character experiences. Unlike Ellis’s other works, a stronger sense of morality and compassion squeezes through among all the perversion. As a father, the Ellis character tries to do good for his son, but his addictions cripple his abilities. He battles the ghost of his own father as much as his rampant addictions. The novel charts the madness of the past infiltrating the present, and on that level the book succeeds.

NON APRITE QUELLA PORTA



Lui è un io-narrante. E si chiama Bret Ellis. Forse in mezzo c’è anche Easton, non lo si dice, ma neppure lo si esclude.
Per le prime pagine Bret, il lui, l’io-narrante, elenca i libri che ha scritto, commentandoli, Meno di zero, Le regole dell’attrazione, American Psycho ecc., raccontandone gloria fama successo guadagni.
Dopo un po’ si parla di giovani adolescenti scomparsi: qui sembrano essere soprattutto maschi, di là soprattutto femmine. Bret ne legge sui giornali, si tiene informato, anche se sono notizie che gli causano brividi di paura e attacchi di panico.
Ma c’è molto probabilmente anche un serial killer che si aggira nella zona, non è interessato agli adolescenti, ma potrebbe aver puntato Bret.
E qualcuno manda strani segnali-messaggi, alquanto inquietanti, e forse è lo stesso che si diverte a spostare i mobili di casa.
Chiaramente bisogna sospettare di un maschio: lo spesso velo (vello?) di misoginia di Bret impedisce che ci sia una colpevole, sempre e solo maschi.
Sembra di aver riaperto Le schegge.



È sempre lui, il solito Bret che ho imparato a conoscere: cinico, sferzante, saccente, presuntuosello. Conosce tutta la musica, ogni canzone, e anche il rispettivo video, e ricorda i testi a memoria. Conosce i film e li cita in libertà, dialoghi inclusi. Conosce la letteratura. La pubblicità. I notiziari. Sembra vivere con le antenne tese a captare ogni minimo movimento o accenno di. Questa volta c’è meno sesso, e meno pornografia, e anche meno elenchi di abiti firmati.
Conosce molto bene la farmacologia, se non altro alla voce psicofarmaci, c’è di che farsi una cultura sull’argomento. E il lettore apprende che bambini e adolescenti negli Stati Uniti ne sono imbottiti: per placare la loro ansia, per tenerli buoni e mai iperattivi, per stordirli e renderli gestibili. Si consiglia yoga e terapia antistress già dall’età di tre anni.
Bret beve e pippa. Non solo cocaina, alterna le sostanze, naturali e sintetiche, mischia, sballa. Mentre ingurgita psicofarmaci a manciate, è una farmacia ambulante. E beve vodka nascondendola nella tazza del caffè, anche liscia a temperatura ambiente (da non fare mai, neppure sotto tortura)



Questa volta è sposato e ha due figli: il maggiore è un maschio, ed è proprio figlio suo, dna del suo dna, un errore di undici anni prima che ha cercato di tenere a distanza, ma poi è rimasto intrappolato nel matrimonio con sua madre – ovviamente una ex modella, ora starlette del cinema, bomba sexy – la quale ha una figlia minore (sei anni) da un altro uomo, e Bret fa da papà anche a questa. Facile immaginare che padre possa essere. Irriverente, per essere magnanimi.
E quindi Bret a questo giro è soprattutto etero. O bi. Ma di maschi e culi e cazzi da succhiare racconta meno del solito.
Soprattutto a differenziarsi da Le schegge è la temperatura: qui più bassa, più fredda, più cool. Come se la sua storia potesse essere una burla (e principalmente per questo motivo, cinque stelle di gradimento all’altro e quattro a questo)



Poi, verso la fine, la temperatura sale, si scalda.
E nonostante ci dica e dichiari che American Psycho è una colossale metafora, Patrick Bateman, il protagonista, incarna suo padre, con la sua rabbia, la sua ossessione per la ricchezza, la sua solitudine, e comunque Patrick Bateman era un narratore inattendibile, ed è chiaro che i delitti lì descritti erano immaginari e non realmente accaduti, esistevano solo nella mente di Bateman, gli omicidi e le torture erano in realtà fantasie ispirate dalla sua cieca rabbia contro lo stile di vita americano che – malgrado la ricchezza accumulata – l’aveva intrappolato… era un libro sulla società e sui suoi usi e costumi, non un manuale su come fare a pezzi le donne - e comunque quel libro aveva soprattutto a che fare con lo “stile” - Patrick Bateman sembra ritornare anche in queste pagine, qualcuno che si identifica con Patrick Bateman, o che è Patrick Bateman, tenta in queste pagine di trasformare la realtà nel libro che Bret ha scritto anni prima e che lo ha coperto d’oro e fama e successo.
E dopo fenomeni paranormali e parapsicologici, esorcismi, fantasmi e demoni e poltergeist e deliri e sangue e orrore e thriller…: forse no, non c’è nessun Patrick Bateman in queste pagine. E anche se Bret appare particolarmente scosso e impaurito e fuori di balcone, al punto da sdoppiarsi e andarsene in giro sia come Bret sia come lo scrittore Bret, questo Lunar Park è una lunga meditazione sul potere della letteratura e su dove vanno i personaggi delle storie dopo che sono stati scritti, su come possano tornare a complicare la vita dei loro creatori.
Oppure, si tratta di un gigantesco inno alla figura paterna, all’archetipo del padre, e, quindi anche del figlio?

"How lonely people make life. But also I realized what I hadn't learned from him: that a family - if you allow it - gives you joy, which in turn gives you hope."

I’m a pretty big BEE fan, and I love his cool, detached writing style, and how all his books are slightly deranged. I love how the protagonists are always a bit off – a big part of you detests them, a little bit of you feels sorry for them, and a tiny piece of you is jealous of the seemingly glamorous lives they live (the sex, drugs, parties, dining at Spago with supermodels stuff…not the ax murder Patrick Bateman stuff).

Lunar Park is a bit different, because while I felt the expected pity and disgust toward the main character in the beginning of the novel, toward the end he made a turn for the better and I found myself somewhat invested in him. The story follows an accomplished and somewhat unhinged author (named, err, Bret Easton Ellis), as he tries to settle into a “normal life” of marriage and fatherhood. The book is semi-autographical, in that the background of the main character is based on the author’s real life (several references to and quotes from BEE’s past novels are cited); but the story itself is mostly fictional.

The satire and social commentary BEE is known for is definitely not missing from the book. Whereas his past books commented on the casual drug abuse in the 80s and 90s by social upscale slackers, I found it interesting that the most shocking form of drug use (abuse?) in Lunar Park is by children, by prescription. But this is just a side note to the main story of Lunar Park, which is basically a ghost story. And it’s really quite scary – complete with ghosts, stalkers, poltergeists, a demonic Furby-like doll coming to life, and an appearance of Patrick Bateman.

Overall, there were parts that didn’t seem to fit together quite right, and the ending left me slightly confused about certain things, but the story kept me riveted. It was almost refreshing to read BEE’s writing after having a break from him for so long (I hadn’t read one of his books since college), and I think he has a truly original voice.

This is probably the strangest book I've ever read. I didn't like it very much.

Ellis seems to be unable to make up his mind as to what the book's story is about - it starts off depicting his earlier life (sex, drugs, booze, more sex and drugs) before it drifts over into an alcoholic trying to bond with his son, then suddenly things are possessed, the house is haunted, there is someone abducting young boys, a serial killer is on the loose, his marriage is falling apart, his son hates him, he's being stalked, and then the monsters arrive.

A talented author could have made it work, but either Ellis just... isn't, or this is one of his low points. Everything seems mashed together, fragmented, like Ellis kept on visiting the NaNoWriMo forums looking for ways to kick-start his plot. Actually, that's what it read like - a car that keeps on dying, but the owner just won't let it go in peace.

The only vaguely interesting bits were the scenes involving the Terby or the hair monster, but that's simply because by that time I was starved for ANYTHING that would grasp my attention. The book starts off by making so many references to drugs and sex that I'm afraid I'll catch an STD simply by touching it, and then it bores me silly for three hundred pages until expert of all things supernatural Bob Miller (and his sidekicks Sam and Dale) arrive with their EMFs and I could pretend I was reading Supernatural fanficton instead.

Lastly, a possessed not-toy crawls in through the family dog's anus and takes possession of its body, turning it into a werewolf-like thing with wings.

Yes, it's one of those books.

It seems like at least 40% of the book is about how you just can't trust Bret Easton Ellis. The horrific story of an untrustworthy narrator is a good trick if you can pull it off, but I'm not feeling like Lunar Park pulls it off as Will Self's My Idea of Fun, Jim Thompson's After Dark My Sweet, or The Usual Suspects. Though the book is creepy in places, I never found it scary. Though the book is intended to be a parody of suburban life, I do not find that part of the book compelling, funny, or particularly pointed. The use of brand names pushed me into anachronism fact check territory, which I did not enjoy. There were interesting story elements here. They did not come together for me. I did really want to like this. But I just didn't. I only read about 60% of this before I got really really sick of hearing about fictional Bret Easton Ellis.