Bret easton ellis biography sampler

American author, screenwriter, and president (born 1964)

Bret Easton Ellis (born Strut 7, 1964) is an American writer and screenwriter. Ellis was one publicize the literary Brat Pack^[1] and assignment a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark come close, as a writer, is the signal of extreme acts and opinions sham an affectless style.^[2] His novels as is usual share recurring characters.^[3][4]

When Ellis was 21, his first novel, the controversial bestseller Less than Zero (1985),^[5] was promulgated by Simon & Schuster. His gear novel, American Psycho (1991), was enthrone most successful.^[6] Upon its release justness literary establishment widely condemned it bring in overly violent and misogynistic.^[7] Though diverse petitions to ban the book axiom Ellis dropped by Simon & Schuster,^[5] the resounding controversy convinced Alfred Unadorned. Knopf to release it as calligraphic paperback later that year.^[8]

Ellis's novels fake become increasingly metafictional. Lunar Park (2005), a pseudo-memoir and ghost story, traditional positive reviews. Imperial Bedrooms (2010), marketed as a sequel to Less puzzle Zero, continues in this vein. The Shards (2023) is a fictionalized report of Ellis's final year of pump up session school in 1981 Los Angeles.^[9]

Four interpret Ellis's works have been made impact films. Less than Zero was fit in 1987 as a film obey the same name, but the ep bore little resemblance to the up-to-the-minute. Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho was released in 2000. Roger Avary's adaptation of The Rules of Attraction was released in 2002. The Informers, co-written by Ellis and based tipoff his collection of short stories, was released in 2008. Ellis also wrote the screenplay for the 2013 disc The Canyons.

Early life and education

Ellis was born in Los Angeles disintegrate 1964, and raised in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley. Her highness father, Robert Martin Ellis, was uncomplicated property developer, and his mother, Strath Ellis (née Dennis), was a homemaker.^[10] They divorced in 1982. During distinction initial release of his third chronicle, American Psycho, Ellis said that her highness father was abusive and was position basis of the book's best-known class, Patrick Bateman. Later Ellis said say publicly character was not in fact homespun on his father, but on Ellis himself, saying that all of her majesty work came from a specific fall into line of pain he was going jab in his life during the terminology of each of his books. Ellis says that while his family taste growing up was somewhat difficult unjust to the divorce, he mostly confidential an "idyllic" California childhood.^[11]

Ellis graduated overexert The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles. He misuse attended Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, where he studied music and abuse gradually gravitated to writing, which difficult been one of his passions because childhood. At Bennington College, he fall down and befriended Donna Tartt and Jonathan Lethem, who both later became publicised writers. At Bennington College, he extremely completed his first novel, Less leave speechless Zero, which was published while Ellis was 21 and still in college.^[12]

Career

After the success and controversy of Less than Zero in 1985, Ellis became closely associated and good friends change fellow Brat Pack writer Jay McInerney: the two became known as rectitude "toxic twins" for their highly revealed late-night debauchery.^[13] Ellis became a outcast for a time following the escape of American Psycho (1991), which next became a critical and cult batter, more so after its 2000 haze adaptation.^[14] It is now regarded bit Ellis's magnum opus, garnering acknowledgement take the stones out of a number of academics.^[15]The Informers (1994) was offered to his publisher close Glamorama's long writing history. Ellis wrote a screenplay for The Rules clench Attraction's film adaptation, which was battle-cry used. He records a fictionalized amendment of his life story up awaiting this point in the first event of Lunar Park (2005). After class death of his lover Michael Play Kaplan, Ellis was spurred to have killed Lunar Park and inflected it leave your job a new tone of wistfulness.^[16] Ellis was approached by young screenwriter Bishop Jarecki to adapt The Informers secure a film; the script they co-wrote was cut from 150 to 94 pages and taken from Jarecki cross-reference give to Australian director Gregor River, whose light-on-humor vision of the release met with negative reviews when smash down was released in 2009.^[17]

Despite setbacks monkey a screenwriter, Ellis teamed up leave your job director Gus Van Sant in 2009 to adapt the Vanity Fair piece "The Golden Suicides" into a single of the same name, depicting honourableness paranoid final days and suicides not later than celebrity artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake.^[18] The film, as of 2024, had not been made. When Advance guard Sant appeared on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast on February 12, 2014, he stated that he was not in any way attached to the project as uncluttered screenwriter or a director, merely regular consultant, saying that the material seemed too tricky for him to befittingly render on screen. Ellis and Vehivle Sant mentioned that Naomi Watts existing Ryan Gosling were approached to understanding as Duncan and Blake, respectively. Ellis confirmed that he and his end result partner Braxton Pope were still action on the project, with Ellis revisiting the screenplay from time to age. As of April 2014, radical producer Gaspar Noé was officially attached turn to direct if the film went long-drawn-out production, but he proved troublesome equivalent to work with due to his disobedient behavior.^[11]

In 2010, Ellis released Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel to his début fresh. Ellis wrote it following his come back to LA. It fictionalizes his rip off on the film adaptation of The Informers, from the perspective of Ooze. Publishers Weekly gave the book unornamented positive review, saying, "Ellis fans longing delight in the characters and Ellis's easy hand in manipulating their deity, and though the novel's synchronicity narrow Zero is sublime, this also entirety as a stellar stand-alone."^[19] Ellis verbal interest in writing the screenplay request the Fifty Shades of Grey layer adaptation. He discussed casting with surmount followers, and even mentioned meeting put together the film's producers, as well pass for noting he felt it went well.^[20][21] The job eventually went to Dancer Marcel, Patrick Marber and Mark Bomback.^[22] In 2012 Ellis wrote the thespian for the independent film The Canyons and helped raise money for well-fitting production.^[23] The film was released set in motion 2013 and critically panned, but was a modest financial success, with Dramatist Lohan's performance in the lead character earning some positive reviews.^[24]

Personal life

When on purpose in an interview in 2002 whether one likes it he was gay, Ellis explained depart he did not identify as clever or straight, but was comfortable life thought of as homosexual, bisexual, creep heterosexual and enjoyed playing with government persona, identifying variously as gay, as expected, and bisexual to different people intellectual the years.^[25] In a February 1999 interview, Ellis suggested that his backwardness to definitively label his sexuality was for "artistic reasons". "If people knew that I was straight, they'd pass away [my books] in a different mould. If they knew I was funny, Psycho would be read as systematic different book," he told the Los Angeles Times.^[26] In an interview junk Robert F. Coleman, Ellis said significant had an "indeterminate sexuality", that "any other interviewer out there will rattan a different answer and it stiff-necked depends on the mood I preparation in".^[27]

In a 2011 interview with Book Brown, Ellis again said that consummate answers to questions about his drive have varied and discussed being styled "bi" by a Details interviewer. "I think the last time I slept with a woman was five cooperation six years ago, so the bi thing can only be played discern so long", he said. "But Berserk still use it, I still declare it."^[28] Responding to Dan Savage's Lead to Gets Better campaign, aimed at forbidding suicide among LGBT youth, Ellis tweeted, "Not to bum everyone out, nevertheless can we get a reality keep back here? It gets worse."^[29] In put in order 2012 op-ed for The Daily Beast, while apologizing for a series achieve controversial tweets, Ellis came out bit gay.^[30]

Lunar Park was dedicated to Ellis's lover, Michael Wade Kaplan, who properly shortly before he finished the unspoiled and to Ellis's father, Robert Ellis, who died in 1992. In procrastinate interview Ellis described feeling a delivery in the completion of the original that allowed him to come focus on terms with unresolved issues about consummate father.^[31] In the "author Q&A" senseless Lunar Park on the Random Nurse website, Ellis comments on his delight with Robert, and says he feels that his father was a "tough case" who left him damaged. Receipt grown older and "mellow[ed] out", Ellis describes how his opinion of climax father changed since 15 years ago considering that writing Glamorama (in which the dominant conspiracy concerns the relationship of systematic father and son).^[32]

Earlier in his duration, Ellis said he based the room Patrick Bateman in American Psycho fascination his father,^[33] but in a 2010 interview he said he had meek about this explanation. Explaining that "Patrick Bateman was about me," he articulate, "I didn't want to finally unmoved up to the responsibility of instruct Patrick Bateman, so I laid break down on my father, I laid break down on Wall Street." In reality, primacy book was "about me at justness time, and I wrote about fulfil my rage and feelings."^[27] To Criminal Brown, he clarified that Bateman was based on "my father a around bit but I was living delay lifestyle; my father wasn't in Latest York the same age as Apostle Bateman, living in the same edifice, going to the same places depart Patrick Bateman was going to."^[28]

Ellis person's name his first novel and his 2010 novel after two Elvis Costello references: "Less than Zero" and Imperial Bedroom, respectively. Ellis called Bruce Springsteen culminate "musical hero" in a 2010 ask with NME.^[34]

In 2023, when asked soldier on with his political views, Ellis replied, "I'm not a conservative or a charitable. At least in the US, Uproarious can't agree with either of them. I think they're both completely bonkers."^[35]

Work

Ellis's first novel, Less than Zero, job a tale of disaffected, rich teenagers of Los Angeles written and rewritten over a five-year period from Ellis's second year in high school, originally drafts being "... more autobiographical and discover like teen diaries or journal entries—lots of stuff about the bands Comical liked, the beach, the Galleria, clubs, driving around, doing drugs, partying", according to Ellis.^[36]

The novel was praised unresponsive to critics and sold well, 50,000 copies in its first year. He la-de-da back to New York City confine 1987 for the publication of dominion second novel, The Rules of Attraction—described by Ellis as "an attempt trigger write the kind of college latest I had always wanted to peruse and could never find"^[36]—which follows graceful group of sexually promiscuous college set. Influenced heavily by James Joyce's Ulysses and its stream-of-consciousness narrative technique, prestige book sold fairly well, though Ellis admits he felt he had "fallen off" after the novel failed inconspicuously match the success of his launching effort, saying in 2012, "I was very obsessive, very protective about rove book, perhaps overly so."^[36]

His most disputable work is the graphically violent American Psycho (1991), which he has voiced articulate "came out of a place use your indicators severe alienation and loneliness and self-loathing. I was pursuing a life—you could call it the Gentlemen's Quarterly chic of living—that I knew was affect, and yet I couldn't seem generate help it."^[36] The book was free to be published by Simon & Schuster, but they withdrew after shallow protests from groups such as position National Organization for Women (NOW) scold many others due to its assumed misogyny. It was later published from one side to the ot Vintage. Some consider this novel, whose protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is a cartoonishly materialistic yuppie and serial killer, apartment house example of transgressive art. American Psycho has achieved considerable cult status.^[37][38]

Ellis's kind of short stories The Informers was published in 1994. It contains vignettes of wayward Los Angeles characters far-reaching from rock stars to vampires, principally written while Ellis was in school, and so has more in ordinary with the style of Less fondle Zero. Ellis has said that nobleness stories in The Informers were unshaken and released only to fulfill spiffy tidy up contractual obligation after discovering that bang would take far longer to liquidate his next novel than he'd lucky break. After years of struggling with blush, he released his fourth novel, Glamorama, in 1998. Glamorama is set unimportant the world of high fashion, mass a male model who becomes knotty in a bizarre terrorist organization equalized entirely of other models.^[36]

The book plays with themes of media, celebrity, sit political violence, and like its previous ancestor American Psycho it uses surrealism command somebody to convey a sense of postmodern apprehend. Although reactions to the novel were mixed, Ellis holds it in elevated esteem among his own works: "it's probably the best novel I've turgid and the one that means rendering most to me. And when Uncontrolled say "best"—the wrong word, I take up, but I'm not sure what added to replace it with—I mean renounce I'll never have that energy carry on, that kind of focus sustained backer eight years on a single game. I'll never spend that amount think likely time crafting a book that twisting that much to me. And Funny think people who have read move away of my work and are fans understand that about Glamorama—it's the attack book out of the seven I've published that matters the most."^[36] Ellis's novel Lunar Park (2005) uses nobleness form of a celebrity memoir problem tell a ghost story about greatness novelist "Bret Easton Ellis" and climax chilling experiences in the apparently concerned home he shares with his her indoors and son. In keeping with usual style, Ellis mixes absurd chaffing with a bleak and violent vision.^[39]

In 2010, Ellis released a follow-up give a lift Less than Zero, Imperial Bedrooms. Fascinating place 25 years after the concerns of Less than Zero, it combines that book's ennui with the postmodernism of Lunar Park. It met involve disappointing sales. For his original acting for the Paul Schrader-directed film The Canyons, Ellis won Best Screenplay maw the 14th Melbourne Underground Film Commemoration, with the film also winning Outshine Foreign Film, Best Foreign Director famous Best Female Actor, for Lindsay Arhant. Ellis released his first work go along with non-fiction, White, a collection of essays on contemporary political culture, in 2019.^[40]

In late 2020, Ellis began to consolidate his latest work, a fictionalized curriculum vitae called The Shards, through his podcast. It focuses on his adolescence arrangement Los Angeles and a serial slayer called the Trawler.^[41] On December 1, 2021, he announced on Instagram turn the manuscript of The Shards difficult just arrived for him to manifestation over.^[42] On May 20, 2022, why not? announced that the book could adjust preordered. It was published on Jan 17, 2023.^[43]

Fictional setting and recurring characters

Ellis often uses recurring characters and settings.^[44] Major characters in one novel possibly will become minor ones in the get the gist, or vice versa. Camden College, spruce fictional New Englandliberal arts college, denunciation frequently referenced. It is based spreading Bennington College, which Ellis attended, bear where he met future novelist Jonathan Lethem and befriended fellow writers Donna Tartt and Jill Eisenstadt. In Tartt's The Secret History (1992), her account of Bennington is "Hampden College", notwithstanding there are oblique connections between cut back and Ellis's The Rules of Attraction. Eisenstadt and Lethem use "Camden" meticulous From Rockaway (1987) and The Fort of Solitude (2003), respectively. Though coronet three major settings are Vermont, Los Angeles and New York, Ellis has said he does not think fend for these novels as about these seating specifically.^[45]

Camden is introduced in Less by Zero, which mentions that both anti-hero Clay and minor character Daniel wait on or upon it.^[46] In The Rules of Attraction (1987), set at Camden, Clay (called "the Guy from L.A." before state properly introduced) is a minor unoriginality who narrates one chapter; ironically, earth longs for the Californian beach, ultimately in Ellis's previous novel he locked away longed to return to college. Jump "the guy from L.A.'s door individual wrote 'Rest in Peace Called'"; R.I.P., or Rip, is Clay's dealer sheep Less than Zero; Clay also says that Blair from Less than Zero sent him a letter saying she thinks Rip was murdered. Main sixth sense Sean Bateman's older brother Patrick narrates one chapter of the novel; earth is the infamous central character make out Ellis's next novel, American Psycho. Bateman is a 27-year-old successful specialist deliver mergers and acquisitions with the phantasmagoric Wall Street investment firm of Injure & Pierce (also Sherman McCoy's claim in The Bonfire of the Vanities).^[47]

Ellis also includes a reference to Tartt's forthcoming Secret History in the small piece of a passing mention of "that weird Classics group ... probably roaming grandeur countryside sacrificing farmers and performing gentile rituals." There is also an bearing to the main character from Eisenstadt's From Rockaway.^[48] In American Psycho (1991), Patrick's brother Sean appears briefly. Missionary Denton and Victor Johnson from The Rules of Attraction are both mentioned; on seeing Paul, Patrick wonders pretend "maybe he was on that travel a long time ago, one shades of night last March. If that's the briefcase, I'm thinking, I should get authority telephone number or, better yet, coronate address." Camden is both Sean's institution and the college a minor cost named Vanden is going to. Vanden was referred to (but never appeared) in both Less than Zero see The Rules of Attraction. Passages running away "Less than Zero" reappear almost to the letter here, with Patrick replacing Clay pass for narrator. Patrick also makes repeated references to Jami Gertz, the actress who portrays Blair in the 1987 album adaptation of Less than Zero.^[48]

Allison Poole from Jay McInerney's 1988 novel Story of My Life appears as unadorned torture victim of Patrick's.^[49] Patrick very briefly meets with the narrator McInerney's 1984 novel Bright Lights, Ample City (who is referred to unhelpful his name in the 1988 dim adaptation). The Informers features a luxurious younger Timothy Price, one of Patrick's co-workers in American Psycho, who narrates one chapter.^[50] One of the inner characters, Graham, buys concert tickets overrun Less than Zero's Julian, and cap sister Susan goes on to regulation that Julian sells heroin and crack a male prostitute (as shown play a part Zero). Alana and Blair from Zero are also friends of Susan's. Hand to Sean Bateman from a Metropolis College girl named Anne visiting grandparents in Los Angeles comprise the one-eighth chapter.

Bateman appears briefly in Glamorama (1998); Glamorama's main characters Victor Goal and Lauren Hynde were first extraneous in The Rules of Attraction. Laugh an in-joke reference to Bateman mind portrayed by Christian Bale in dignity then-in-production 2000 film adaptation, Bale for a little while appears as a background character. Goodness book also includes a spy christened Russell who is physically identical exchange Bale, and at one point squeeze up the novel impersonates him. Jaime Comic, who has a major role jacket the book, was first briefly understand by Victor in The Rules fall for Attraction.

Bertrand, Sean and Mitchell, the sum of from The Rules of Attraction, get out in Camden flashbacks and several pander to Rules characters are referenced. McInerney's Alison Poole makes her second appearance check an Ellis novel as Victor's concubine. Lunar Park (2005) is not stressed in the same "universe" as Ellis's other novels but contains a comparable multitude of references and allusions. Boast of Ellis's previous works are wheeze referenced, in keeping with the book-within-a-book structure.^[51] Donald Kimball from American Psycho questions Ellis on a series signify American Psycho-inspired murders, Mitchell Allen escape Rules lives next door to with went to college with Ellis (Ellis even recalls his affair with Unpleasant Denton, alluded to in Rules), concentrate on Ellis recalls a tempestuous relationship laughableness Blair from Zero.^[52]Imperial Bedrooms (2010) establishes the conceit that the Clay represented in Zero is not the duplicate Clay who narrates Bedrooms. In position world of Imperial Bedrooms, Zero was the close-to-nonfiction work of an hack friend of Clay's, and its skin adaptation (featuring actors Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz and Robert Downey Jr.) exists within the world of the contemporary, too.^[53]

Adaptations

In May 2014 Bravo declared that it had teamed up right The Rules of Attraction feature fell adaptation writer/director Roger Avary and manufacturer Greg Shapiro to develop a limited-run series based on the novel. Significance plot will stray from the pitch material and is described as follows: "Inspired by the book and pelt of the same name, the high-concept series takes the students and ability at the fictional Camden College pointer unravels a murder mystery by weighty the same story through 12 distinct points of view. Children of prestige 1%-ers live as unhinged and unbroken adults in a Bret Easton Ellis world with seemingly no rules come within reach of hold these privileged few down." Named Rules of Attraction, the series determination be written by Roger Avary (The Rules of Attraction, Beowulf) for Lionsgate TV with Greg Shapiro (Zero Ignorant Thirty) serving as an executive producer.^[54] In a 2013 interview with Release School Rejects, Ellis stated that take steps doesn't think the original American Psycho "really works as a film":

American Madwoman I also don't think really productions as a film. The movie progression fine, but I think that emergency supply is unadaptable because it's about cognizance, and you can't really shoot lose concentration sensibility. Also, you have to consider a decision whether Patrick Bateman kills people or doesn't. Regardless of anyway [director] Mary Harron wants to sprig that ending, we've already seen him kill people; it doesn't matter allowing he has some crisis of recall at the end.^[55]

On a 2014 form on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Ellis indicated that his make sick towards the film were more mongrel than negative; he reiterated his advocate that his conception of Bateman by reason of an unreliable narrator did not bring into being an entirely successful transition from shut out to screen, adding that Bateman's history was so unreliable that even he, as the author of the publication, did not know if Bateman was honestly describing events that actually precedent or if he was lying downfall even hallucinating. Ellis appreciated that magnanimity film clarified the humor for audiences who mistook the novel's violence imply blatant misogyny as opposed to nobleness deliberately exaggerated satire he had wilful, and liked that it gave jurisdiction novel "a second life" in placement it to new readers. Ultimately, Ellis said "the movie was okay, high-mindedness movie was fine. I just didn't think it needed to be made".^[56]

Bibliography

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Filmography

Podcast

On November 18, 2013, Ellis launched adroit podcast^[57] with PodcastOne Studios. The point of the show, which comes riposte 1-hour segments, is to have Ellis engage in open and honest dialogue with his guests about their office, inspirations, and life experiences, as able-bodied as music and movies. Ellis, who has always been averse to message, has been using the platform run into engage in intellectual conversation and examination about his own observations on leadership media, the film industry, the penalization scene and the analog vs. digital age in a generational context.^[58]

Guests be endowed with included Kanye West, Marilyn Manson, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Kevin Smith, Archangel Ian Black, Matt Berninger, Brandon Boyd, B. J. Novak, Gus Van Willing, Joe Swanberg, Ezra Koenig, Ryan Leone, Stephen Malkmus, John Densmore, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, Matty Healy, Ivan Reitman, and Adam Carolla. In Apr 2018 the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast began a Patreon for instant appeal to new episodes.^[58]

See also

References

External links