Book Review
Title: American Psycho
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Genre: Psychological/Horror
Rating: ****
Review: American Psycho is one of my favourite movie and one of Christian Bale’s best performances so I had to read the book. This book is described as being a black comedy which is something that appeals to me and the movie did it perfectly so I am excited to see the book version of Patrick Bateman. The opening to American Psycho was strange we are introduced to Patrick Bateman, a 26-year-old man who works on Wall Street as he heads to a dinner party at his fiancé, Evelyn’s house with his friend Timothy Price. While Patrick is intelligent, charming, and handsome he seems to be the odd one out at the dinner despite the interesting characters present. He suspects that his fiancé is having an affair with his friend and seems sexually disinterested in him, so much so he doesn’t even spend the night at her place and they also don’t live together. If anyone has seen American Psycho you know the type of man Patrick is, and he even admits in the first chapter that he is an evil psychopath but we haven’t seen it yet.
As we are introduced to more of Patrick's life, it is clear to see he is incredibly vain but he also has quite the temper that makes an appearance at the most unlikely of times. One such time they are in a nightclub getting drink and high when Patrick makes the comment of wanting to kill the waitress and play with her blood but he can't be heard over the music. Patrick is also highly intelligent and notices the smallest details about people the strangest of which is that he can look at someone's clothes and identify what designers they are or aren't wearing which seems strange for a guy. Patrick takes good care of himself though tanning manicures and don't even get me started on his extremely detailed skincare routine. But so far nothing majorly interesting has happened.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we haven’t seen an onscreen action but we do know that Patrick is killing people as he takes his blood-stained sheets and clothing to a dry cleaners. I suspect with Patrick being the playboy he is, he is killing the women he sleeps with which also happen to be the girlfriends or partners of his friends and colleagues and no one is any the wiser about his true nature. Compared to the other men in this novel, Patrick seems the best of the bunch despite his dark side as he doesn’t really drink, he does drug occasionally and he works hard. However, his sexual tastes while being very normal on the surface are extremely dark as he gets off on horror movies where women are killing in disturbing yet highly sexualized manners. I would like to see some of this gore happen onscreen rather than offscreen but it does work to highlight Patrick’s darker side while you see him act completely normal although following his thought process is difficult at times as they seem to bounce around completely random topics before becoming extremely focused on one particular thing normally fashion which is unusual in a very masculine male character.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Patrick begins saying and doing things in plain sight that would get a normal person committed or at least arrested but no one seems to pay any attention to this side of Patrick. The way he torments Evelyn at dinner with things he has done or how he tells the girl in the movie store he likes the way the women are killing in the movie to the way he tortures a homeless man in the middle of the street seem like every day, normal occurrences and it really highlights how the novel shows you Patrick’s duality and yet completely dismisses the fact he is a raging psychopath intent on killing anyone that takes his fancy.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, it seems a lot slower and more dense than it’s movie adaptation and I was hoping for something to lift the tension of the novel every soon or I may end up DNFing it. Over the next couple of days Patrick’s behaviour only escalates and an interesting scene for me was where he decides to kill Luis, Courtney’s boyfriend and she happens to be one of the many women he is sleeping with. However, this doesn’t go according to plan as when he sneaks up on Luis in the bathroom and attempts to strangle him, he realises that Luis finds this arousing and sees this as Patrick coming on to him and he ends up confessing that he has had his eye on Patrick for a while and I have a feeling this will complicate their relationship, if he doesn’t follow through on killing him later on in the novel. This behaviours only continues to escalate and Patrick uses drugs to ward off the so called madness he feels creeping over him as the Christmas season approaches. It is also at this point we get a proper sex scene, no half-assed attempt with a love, but rather Patrick hires two prostitutes and has the time of his life, he doesn’t kill them but they do leave his company injured and slightly bloodied but well compensated for it.
As we cross the halfway mark in the novel, Patrick’s criminal activity is increasing while his mental state is taking a sharp decline and he himself even comments that he think he is losing it after sending a date home (after sleeping with her) because he doesn’t want to hurt her. While Patrick has been shown to enjoy violence both sexually and not, it seems like something comes over him, controlling his actions at times and at others it seems like a conscious choice to kill and torture people and animals so I am not sure what to think about him. At first, I thought he had a mental illness causing his action which would have meant they were beyond his control but sometimes when he kills he is extremely lucid and enjoying every second of it and I think this is the point to make the reader unsure of what Patrick is so that we can’t anticipate his actions later on.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, things begin to get really interesting as Patrick takes an old flame out on a date and take her back to his place presumably for sex but she is seeing someone else and doesn’t want to get involved with Patrick again possibly because she knows of his violent side. This becomes apparent when she tries to escape his apartment and he restraints her as he then proceeds to torture her in some very imaginative way but it leaves me with the question of whether no one hears him or whether they turn a blind eye to his actions. Things also take a dramatic turn when a private investigator is hired by Paul Owen’s girlfriend Meredith to investigate his disappearance although we the readers are aware that Patrick killed him and it is quite satisfying to see Patrick sweat when he is questioned although a friend seems to have given him an alibi for the night. For all his charm Patrick is at his core an extremely nervous almost shy person which is probably how he got the nickname the boy next door. As Patrick claims his next few victims it is easy to see he has gotten to the point where he no longer cares about being caught or people finding out about what he does in his spare time yet still freaks out about his fiancé meeting one of his many mistresses.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, Patrick’s relationship with Evelyn comes to an end and in the wake of that Patrick realises that he only wants to be loved but there isn’t anyone who could be with him long-term with getting hurt. However, he does spark a relationship with Jeanette, his secretary that is still going strong at the end of the novel, despite the abortion which he mentions is the fifth child he has aborted, which does give me some hope for Patrick, not a lot but a little. Despite this Patrick’s mental health takes a nosedive as he goes on a literal rampage killing quite a few people and even ending up in a police chase that ends with him getting away and the only repercussion we see of this is a cab driver recognising Patrick and robbing him but other than that life goes back to normal for Patrick and that’s the end of the book, literally. Overall, I really enjoyed American Psycho despite it’s strange pacing, the almost non-existent plot and the extremely unsatisfying ending but it still ranks as a favourite for all those reasons and more.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Comments