American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho is one of the most controversial and talked-about novels of all time. A multi-million-copy bestseller hailed as a modern classic, it is a violent and outrageous black comedy about the darkest side of human nature.With an introduction by Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting.I like to dissect girls. Did you know I’m utterly insane?Patrick Bateman has it all: good looks, youth, charm, a job on Wall Street, and reservations at every new restaurant in town. He is also a psychopath. A man addicted to his superficial, perfect life, he pulls us into a dark underworld where the American Dream becomes a nightmare . . .Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

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, Serious, clever and shatteringly effective, For its savagely coherent picture of a society lethally addicted to blandness, it should be judged by the highest standards, That the book's contents are shocking is downright undeniable, but just as Bonfire of the Vanities exposed the corruption and greed engendered in eighties politics and high living, American Psycho examines the mindless preoccupations of the nineties preppy generation, Our killer nonchalantly takes his blood-splattered clothes to the dry cleaners and gives them attitude when they complain about the stains . . . You'd think at least one of these witnesses would get suspicious or complain, but they don't

Bret Easton Ellis is the author of several novels, including Imperial Bedrooms, Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, Glamorama and Lunar Park, The Shards and a collection of stories, The Informers. Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho and The Informers have all been made into films. His first work of non-fiction, White, was published in 2019. He is the host of the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast available on Patreon. He lives in Los Angeles.