Dazzling author Bret Easton Ellis (58) publishes new novel
The youth of the “American Psycho”
The American cult author Bret Easton Ellis (58) made his fans wait for a new novel for twelve and a half years. Now «The Shards» is finally here and gives a deep insight into Ellis’ own youth.
Published: 19 minutes ago
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Bret Easton Ellis made his international breakthrough in 1991 with “American Psycho”.
Daniel ArnetEditor of Sunday Blick magazine
The impatience was great. So big that some newspapers broke the embargo and reported in advance on the new novel “The Shards” by US author Bret Easton Ellis (58, “American Psycho”). Twelve and a half years after the last novel, «The Shards» is now on sale worldwide.
Ellis has something mystically incomprehensible like the American phantom authors JD Salinger (1919-2010, “Catcher in the Rye”) and Thomas Pynchon (85, “The Ends of the Parable”): Like his US colleagues, Ellis presents himself on the book cover an old photo, here one from 1982.
Because “The Shards” is set in the early 1980s: 17-year-old first-person narrator Bret Ellis from Los Angeles goes to the Buckley School, where a new student arrives. “I quickly realized that I didn’t want to get to know Robert Mallory as much as I felt like I already knew him.” Bret is convinced: Robert hides a dark secret.
Shards of memories from the past
Writer Ellis was a teenager at the time and also attended Los Angeles’ Buckley School. He writes at the end of the book: “Apart from the author himself, any resemblance to living or dead people is largely coincidental and not real.” In terms of first-person narrators, «The Shards» is one of those autofictional works that are booming at the moment.
In stores from today
Bret Easton Ellis, «The Shards», Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Bret Easton Ellis, «The Shards», Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Like an archaeologist, author Ellis assembles the shards of memory from the past into a whole and now presents us with a brick of a book: 736 pages! “I wanted to honestly write about what it was like when I was 17,” the American star writer said in a recent interview.
He describes himself as the gay youth who flees from his father, who was an alcoholic, in libraries and cinemas and becomes addicted to books and films himself. “I looked at the posters hanging behind glass for the films that would be released later in the fall,” it was once written.
After the meteoric rise with the novel “American Psycho” (1991) – filmed in 2000 with Christian Bale in the leading role – author Ellis crashes due to drug excesses. According to his own words, the letter millionaire is clean today and only drinks in a civilized manner: a cocktail every evening after half past seven.