American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis' work American Psycho was released in 1991. Patrick Bateman, a serial murderer and Manhattan investment banker, tells the plot in the first person. While "some nations [deem it] so potentially upsetting that it can only be sold shrink-wrapped", according to Alison Kelly of The Observer, "critics rave over it" and "academics luxuriate in its transgression and postmodern features".

The plot culminates in a SWAT helicopter chase through New York after Bateman randomly shoots several people on the streets. Bateman holes up in his office and calls his lawyer, Harold Carnes, confessing all of his crimes to Carnes’ answering machine. However, when he later meets Carnes and confronts him about his taped confession, Carnes mistakes him for a different Patrick Bateman and insists that Bateman’s confession is all a hilarious joke. When Bateman argues with him about having murdered Paul Owen, Carnes insists that he has just had dinner with Owen in London.

The story concludes with Bateman carrying on with his life as if nothing had occurred, going out on the town with his pals for a night of partying, with no repercussions for his misdeeds. The reader is left in no question about the insignificance of each human being and the meaninglessness of modern existence, while not knowing if Bateman is a psychopath or a deluded schizophrenic. In either case, Ellis' thesis suggests that mental instability, including murderous wrath, is a natural reaction to the commercialization of all human interaction and connection.

Detailed information:

Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Genre: Transgressive fiction, Thriller

Link to read: www.goodreads.com/book/show/28676.American_Psycho