He finally found one who helped him overcome the trauma and write the book.Īs the flap of 'The Shards' reveals, the Los Angeles-born Ellis wanted to become a musician. The prologue also prepares the reader to a gruesome story, as the narrator mentions that many of his psychotherapists weren't able to deal with the horror of the 1981 events. One name is frequently mentioned in the prologue: Robert Mallory. The serial killer murders young women his bestial tendencies terrorize residents of the West Coast in the early 1980s. Readers know him as the novel's narrator and lead protagonist, Patrick Bateman.īut in the new novel, no one knows until the end who the 'Trawler' is. In 'American Psycho,' a serial killer is on the prowl in New York.

He writes that he was traumatized by events that happened during his final year at the Buckley Prep School, but that he nevertheless wanted to depict them.Ī film still from 'American Psycho'. The narrator, who is now 56 years old, explains why he needed many attempts to write his new novel set in 1981. In the prologue of 'The Shards,' Bret Easton Ellis plays on autofiction and discusses his own career and works, referring for example to his controversial 1991 novel, 'American Psycho,' which in Germany was indexed by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons because of its explicit crime scenes. Among them is the 17-year-old Bret, a fictionalized version of the author, who is writing his first novel in the early 1980s.

Similarly, 'The Shards' also centers on partying wealthy young students. Already in 1985, Bret Easton Ellis had set his debut novel in Los Angeles: The protagonists in 'Less than Zero' were characterized by superficiality, indifference, as well as their consumption of drugs and anxiety relievers.

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