Lunar Park

The best book I have read in a long time! The mix of fiction and non-fiction makes you wonder how really crazy Ellis is. I have never read a book by such a fearless author. I feel that so few authors are willing to write a book that is so non-apologetic. The way that Ellis made it ok to mix genres as well as through in characters from all of his other books was really engaging. The mystery of the return of Patrick Bateman had me flipping pages as fast as I could. You have to wonder if this was not so much of a fiction but a real life account of Ellis' biggest fears about his own writing. Ellis' drunk and confused outbursts throughout the book just makes him super easy to relate to, but also make the reader unsure if anything is actually happening or if he is just really drugged up. You so often hear sons talk about their distant relationships with their dead beat father's but you so rarely hear of the efforts of that dead beat dad and how he tries to make up for the years of abandonment with out a single clue on where to start. I enjoyed this book but once again it is not for everyone, like all of Ellis' books it is not for the timid.

What on earth have I been thinking? How long ago was it that I read Less Than Zero and, far more importantly, American Psycho? How has it taken me three years to arrive at Lunar Park? This book confirms Ellis as the master satirist and cultural critique of his generation of writers. The only person to give him any competition whatsoever may be Chuck Palahunick. And how pretentious the characterization of this text is: this is a work of fiction. Only one much more sure of authorial intention than myself would venture to apply such a definitive tag. How about something more like "creative non-fiction?" Indeed, there is far too much truth in this book to call it fiction, a figment of imagination. I challenge you to locate a book that gives any better socio-psychological account of the paradigm of the normal suburban family. The only character who rebels against the normalization of suburbia is no less a personality than the author himself; yes, the Bret Easton Elis gives us the scoop on suburban psychopathology. I recall a particular critique of American Psycho, which argued that the book was worthless and could not but be so. This assertion was premised on the fact that everything was meaningless, and we all know that you cannot create meaning from meaninglessness, don't we? Or, do we? Indeed, the most effective and objective explanation of the human condition is that we are the pawns of contingency, pure and simple. There is no pre-given universal standard according to which the human race should conduct itself. Thus, everything is given as pure contingency, absolute chaos, and meaninglessness. The challenge of the human condition is to employ the materials of Fortuna in a productive way, in such a way that we create a sense of significance for ourselves and the particular world in which we live. Moreover, this is, by definition, a never-ending task. The problem with the suburban paradigm is that it begins and ends with contingency. This is not to say that there are no prevailing norms, for there surely are; unfortunately, they are pre-given, accepted as a matter of historical declaration. For example, everyone dresses in their designer clothes, all of the kids have televisions, cellphones, the most expensive garments with which to cover themselves with, and, most importantly, the best pharmacologically constructed personalities that money can buy. Though the perfect parents protect their kids from the vicissitudes of city fashions with its cripplingly infinite number of possible combinations, they fail miserably to set an example for taking the accidental and making it UNFINISHED

-If you enjoy the authors other books -if you ever wondered about how autobiographical his books really are: You'll probably enjoy this study on celebrity, aging, what it means to be a son, a father, and yourself... without any answers offered whatsoever. Plus some supernatural Cujo action.