Bret Easton Ellis facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Bret Easton Ellis
Ellis in 2010
Born	(1964-03-07) March 7, 1964 (age 61) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist screenwriter
Education	Bennington College (BA)
Period	1985–present
Genre	Satire, black comedy, Transgressive fiction
Literary movement	Postmodernism
Notable works	American Psycho (1991) Less than Zero (1985) The Shards (2023)
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Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964) is an American writer and screenwriter. He is known for his unique writing style, which often describes strong actions and ideas in a calm way. His books often feature the same characters appearing in different stories.

When Ellis was 21, his first book, Less than Zero (1985), was published. It became a bestseller and was widely discussed. His third book, American Psycho (1991), was his most successful. When it came out, many people criticized it for being too violent. Some groups even tried to have the book banned. Even though his first publisher dropped the book, another publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, released it as a paperback later that year.

Ellis's books have increasingly played with the idea of what is real and what is made up. Lunar Park (2005) was a story that felt like a real-life memory but was also a ghost story, and it received good reviews. Imperial Bedrooms (2010) was marketed as a follow-up to Less than Zero. His recent book, The Shards (2023), is a story based on his own final year of high school in 1981 in Los Angeles, but with some made-up parts.

Four of Ellis's books have been made into movies. Less than Zero became a film in 1987, but it was quite different from the book. The movie version of American Psycho was released in 2000. The Rules of Attraction became a movie in 2002. The Informers, which Ellis helped write, came out in 2008. Ellis also wrote the script for the 2013 movie The Canyons.

Early Life and School

Ellis was born in Los Angeles in 1964. He grew up in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley. His father, Robert Martin Ellis, built and sold buildings, and his mother, Dale Ellis, was a stay-at-home parent. They divorced in 1982.

When American Psycho was first released, Ellis said that his father was the inspiration for the book's most famous character, Patrick Bateman. Later, Ellis said that the character was actually based on himself and his own difficult feelings at the time. He mentioned that all his work came from personal struggles he was going through while writing each book. Ellis says that even though his family life was a bit tough because of his parents' divorce, he mostly had a happy childhood in California.

Ellis went to The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks. Then he attended Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. There, he first studied music but slowly moved towards writing, which he had loved since he was a child. At Bennington College, he met and became friends with Donna Tartt and Jonathan Lethem, who also became famous writers. He finished his first book, Less than Zero, while he was still in college at age 21.

Writing Career

After Less than Zero became a success and caused a lot of discussion in 1985, Ellis became good friends with another writer, Jay McInerney. They were known as the "toxic twins" because of their well-known late-night parties.

Ellis faced a lot of criticism after American Psycho (1991) was released. However, the book later became very popular, especially after its movie version in 2000. It is now seen as one of Ellis's most important works and is studied by many experts.

The Informers (1994), a collection of short stories, was given to his publisher while he was working on Glamorama. Ellis wrote a script for the movie version of The Rules of Attraction, but it was not used. He tells a story based on his life up to this point in the first part of Lunar Park (2005). After his partner, Michael Wade Kaplan, passed away, Ellis was motivated to finish Lunar Park, adding a feeling of sadness to it.

In 2010, Ellis released Imperial Bedrooms, a follow-up to his first book. He wrote it after moving back to Los Angeles. The book tells a fictional story about his work on the movie version of The Informers, seen through the eyes of a character named Clay. Publishers Weekly gave the book a good review, saying that "Ellis fans will delight in the characters and Ellis's easy hand in manipulating their fates."

Ellis was interested in writing the script for the Fifty Shades of Grey movie. He talked about who should be cast with his followers and even met with the movie's producers. He felt the meeting went well, but the job eventually went to other writers. In 2012, Ellis wrote the script for the independent movie The Canyons and helped raise money for it. The movie was released in 2013 and received mixed reviews, but it made some money. Lindsay Lohan's acting in the main role received some positive comments.

Personal Life

Ellis dedicated his book Lunar Park to his partner, Michael Wade Kaplan, who passed away shortly before he finished the book. He also dedicated it to his father, Robert Ellis, who died in 1992. In an interview, Ellis said that finishing the book helped him deal with unresolved feelings about his father. On the Random House website, Ellis commented on his relationship with his father, saying he felt his father was a "tough case" who left him feeling hurt. As he grew older and became calmer, Ellis's view of his father changed.

Earlier in his career, Ellis said he based the character Patrick Bateman in American Psycho on his father. But in a 2010 interview, he said he had lied about this. He explained that "Patrick Bateman was about me," and that he "didn't want to finally own up to the responsibility of being Patrick Bateman, so I laid it on my father." He clarified that the book was "about me at the time, and I wrote about all my rage and feelings." He told James Brown that Bateman was based "a little bit" on his father, but that Ellis himself was living the same kind of lifestyle in New York as Patrick Bateman.

Ellis named his first book and his 2010 book after two Elvis Costello songs: "Less than Zero" and Imperial Bedroom. Ellis called Bruce Springsteen his "musical hero" in a 2010 interview with NME.

In 2023, when asked about his political views, Ellis said, "I'm not a conservative or a liberal. At least in the US, I can't agree with either of them. I think they're both completely bonkers."

His Books and Stories

Ellis at The Arches in Glasgow in 1998

Ellis's first book, Less than Zero, tells the story of bored, rich teenagers in Los Angeles. He wrote and rewrote it over five years, starting from his second year of high school. Earlier versions were "more about my own life and read like teen diaries," he said, "lots of stuff about the bands I liked, the beach, the Galleria, clubs, driving around, partying."

Critics praised the book, and it sold well, with 50,000 copies in its first year. He moved back to New York City in 1987.

His most discussed work is the very violent American Psycho (1991). He has said it "came out of a place of severe loneliness and self-hatred." The book was supposed to be published by Simon & Schuster, but they pulled out after protests from groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW) and others, who felt it was too harsh towards women. It was later published by Vintage. Some people see this book, whose main character, Patrick Bateman, is a very materialistic businessman and a serial killer, as an example of transgressive art (art that goes against normal rules). American Psycho has become a very popular cult classic.

Ellis's collection of short stories The Informers was published in 1994. It contains short scenes about wild characters in Los Angeles, from rock stars to vampires. Most of these stories were written while Ellis was in college, so they are similar in style to Less than Zero. Ellis has said that the stories in The Informers were put together and released only to meet a contract deadline, as he realized his next book would take much longer to finish. After years of working on it, he released his fourth book, Glamorama, in 1998. Glamorama is set in the world of high fashion and follows a male model who gets caught up in a strange terrorist group made entirely of other models.

The book explores ideas about media, fame, and violence. Like American Psycho, it uses surreal (dream-like) elements to create a feeling of modern fear. Although reactions to the book were mixed, Ellis thinks highly of it among his own works. He said, "it's probably the best novel I've written and the one that means the most to me." He explained that he would never have that much energy or focus for eight years on a single project again.

Ellis's book Lunar Park (2005) uses the style of a celebrity's life story to tell a ghost story about the writer "Bret Easton Ellis" and his scary experiences in what seems to be a haunted home he shares with his wife and son. Keeping with his usual style, Ellis mixes funny and absurd moments with a dark and violent vision.

In 2010, Ellis released Imperial Bedrooms, a follow-up to Less than Zero. It takes place 25 years after Less than Zero and combines that book's feeling of boredom with the modern style of Lunar Park. It did not sell as well as expected. For his original script for the movie The Canyons, directed by Paul Schrader, Ellis won Best Screenplay at the 14th Melbourne Underground Film Festival. The movie also won Best Foreign Film, Best Foreign Director, and Best Female Actor for Lindsay Lohan. Ellis released his first non-fiction book, White, a collection of essays about modern culture, in 2019.

In late 2020, Ellis began releasing his newest work, a story based on his own life called The Shards, through his podcast. It focuses on his teenage years in Los Angeles and a serial killer known as the Trawler. On December 1, 2021, he announced on Instagram that the manuscript for The Shards had arrived for him to review. On May 20, 2022, he announced that the book could be preordered. It was published on January 17, 2023.

Shared Worlds and Characters

Ellis often uses characters and places that appear in more than one of his books. A main character in one book might become a smaller character in the next, or vice versa. Camden College, a made-up college in New England, is often mentioned. It is based on Bennington College, where Ellis went to school and met other writers like Jonathan Lethem and Donna Tartt.

Camden College is first mentioned in Less than Zero, where the main character Clay and a smaller character Daniel attend it. In The Rules of Attraction (1987), which is set at Camden, Clay is a smaller character who tells one chapter. Interestingly, in this book, he misses the California beach, while in the previous book, he wanted to return to college. In The Rules of Attraction, the main character Sean Bateman's older brother Patrick Bateman tells one chapter. Patrick is the famous main character of Ellis's next book, American Psycho. Patrick is a 27-year-old successful specialist at a made-up investment company called Pierce & Pierce.

In American Psycho (1991), Patrick's brother Sean appears briefly. Paul Denton and Victor Johnson from The Rules of Attraction are also mentioned. Camden is Sean's college and also the college a minor character named Vanden is going to. Vanden was mentioned (but never appeared) in both Less than Zero and The Rules of Attraction. Parts from Less than Zero appear almost word-for-word here, with Patrick telling the story instead of Clay.

Allison Poole from Jay McInerney's 1988 book Story of My Life appears as one of Patrick's victims. Patrick also briefly meets the narrator from McInerney's 1984 book Bright Lights, Big City. The Informers features a much younger Timothy Price, who works with Patrick in American Psycho, telling one chapter.

Bateman appears briefly in Glamorama (1998). Glamorama's main characters Victor Ward and Lauren Hynde were first seen in The Rules of Attraction. As a fun inside joke, Christian Bale, who played Bateman in the 2000 movie, briefly appears as a background character in Glamorama. The book also includes a spy named Russell who looks exactly like Bale and pretends to be him at one point. Jaime Fields, who has a big role in Glamorama, was first briefly mentioned by Victor in The Rules of Attraction.

Bertrand, Sean, and Mitchell, all from The Rules of Attraction, appear in Camden flashbacks, and several other characters from The Rules of Attraction are mentioned. McInerney's Alison Poole appears for the second time in an Ellis book as Victor's girlfriend. Lunar Park (2005) is not set in the same "universe" as Ellis's other books, but it has many similar references. All of Ellis's previous works are mentioned a lot, fitting with the book-within-a-book style. Donald Kimball from American Psycho asks Ellis about a series of murders inspired by American Psycho. Mitchell Allen from The Rules of Attraction lives next door to Ellis and went to college with him.

Imperial Bedrooms (2010) creates the idea that the Clay shown in Less than Zero is not the same Clay who tells the story in Imperial Bedrooms. In the world of Imperial Bedrooms, Less than Zero was a story based on real life written by a friend of Clay's, and its movie version (with actors Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, and Robert Downey Jr.) also exists within the world of the book.

Movie and TV Versions

In May 2014, Bravo announced that they were working with Roger Avary, who wrote and directed The Rules of Attraction movie, and producer Greg Shapiro, to create a TV series based on the book. The story for the series will be different from the book. It will follow students and teachers at the made-up Camden College and solve a murder mystery by telling the same story from 12 different points of view. The series will show how privileged young adults live without many rules in a world created by Bret Easton Ellis.

In a 2013 interview, Ellis said he doesn't think the original American Psycho "really works as a film." He explained that the book is about a character's thoughts, which are hard to show in a movie. He also said that in the book, it's unclear if Patrick Bateman actually kills people or if he's just imagining it.

On a 2014 podcast, Ellis said his feelings about the movie were mixed. He repeated that his idea of Bateman as a narrator who can't always be trusted didn't fully come across in the movie. He added that Bateman's stories were so unreliable that even Ellis, as the author, didn't know if Bateman was telling the truth or just imagining things. Ellis liked that the movie made the humor clearer for audiences who might have misunderstood the book's violence. He also liked that the movie gave his book "a second life" by introducing it to new readers. In the end, Ellis said "the movie was okay, the movie was fine. I just didn't think it needed to be made."

Film and TV Work

Podcast

On November 18, 2013, Ellis started a podcast with PodcastOne Studios. The show, which lasts about an hour, aims to have Ellis talk openly and honestly with his guests about their work, what inspires them, and their life experiences. They also discuss music and movies. Ellis, who has always avoided too much public attention, uses the podcast to have smart conversations and debates about his thoughts on media, the film industry, music, and how digital and older technologies compare across generations.

Guests have included famous people like Kanye West, Marilyn Manson, Judd Apatow, and many others from music, film, and comedy. In April 2018, the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast started a Patreon page, which allows listeners to get new episodes right away by supporting the show.

See also

In Spanish: Bret Easton Ellis para niños

• List of novelists from the United States
• Transgressional fiction