Desma 25 Typography Book

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TYP OGRA tiffany pan design media arts 25 willem henri lucas fall 07

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introduction & research fact fiction

introduction & conclusion With a name like “Typography,” Desma 25 seemed straightforward enough. But 18 groggy mornings, about a hundred designs, and just as many prirnting problems later, a more appropriate reflection might be: Who knew it would involve more than just typing?

Perhaps a more accurate description would be Desma 25: Form, Balance, Motion, Weight, Color, Composition, Column Setting, Hierarchy, Letterspacing, Leading, Legibility and Visual Vernacular.

Or Desma 25: Chop, Maim, Shock, Bellini, Kill.

Or even Desma M25: InDesign 101.

As such, Tuesday/Thursdays 9-12 were dedicated to an exploration of everything from hiring Julia Roberts (the importance of focusing on a central component), a seminal American novel (a criticism of consumerism and and the pornographic degeneration of modern society), to learning inDesign inside and out (mostly sink or swim) and withstanding class critiques (more sink than swim).

What follows is – good, bad, ugly – the culmination of a quarter.

tnr

This typeface first appeared in 1932 in The Times of London newspaper, for which it was designed. It has subsequently become one of the worlds most successful type creations. The original drawings were made under Stanley Morison’s direction by Victor Lardent at The Times.

Based on experiments Morison had conducted using Perpetua and Plantin, it has many old style characteristics but was adapted to give excellent legibility coupled with good economy. Widely used in books and magazines, for reports, office documents and also for display and advertising. (Microsoft typography)

“There should be an apostrophe in that name, “Times’ Roman,” I suppose, though no-one uses it.”

-Charles Bigalow http://www.truetype-typography.com/articles/times.htm

the lazy brown fox jumped over the lazy dog the lazy brown fox jumped over the lazy dog the lazy brown fox jumped over the lazy dog the lazy brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

Times New Roman

In 2004, the U.S. State Department announced that as of February 1, 2004, all U.S. diplomatic documents would use 14 point Times New Roman instead of the previous 12 point Courier New. (wikipedia)

CATEGORY CLASSIFICATION PANOSE DESIGNER(S)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Times_Roman.png

COMMISSIONED BY FOUNDRY DATE RELEASED

Serif Transitional 2263545234 Stanley Morison Starling Burgess Victor Lardent The Times Monotype 1931

Feminist activist Gloria Steinem

is a 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis. It is a firstperson narrative of the life of a wealthy young Manhattanite and self-proclaimed serial killer.

The graphic violence and sexual content was widely commented upon at the novel's release.

Set in Manhattan in the late 1980s, American Psycho spans roughly two years of the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, 26 years old when the story begins, narrates his serial-killer antics; though the reliability is intentionally ambiguous, particularly toward the book’s end. Bateman works as a Vice President at a fictional Wall Street investment bank, Pierce & Pierce, and lives in an expensive Manhattan apartment on the Upper West Side. He embodies the 1980s yuppie culture.

Through the stream-of-consciousness narrative he describes his conversations with colleagues in bars and cafes, his office, and nightclubs, satirizing the vanity of Manhattan yuppies. Bateman’s narrative revolves around his murderous and other seemingly normal activities including renting and returning video tapes, reservations at trendy restaurants, the pursuit of cocaine in dance clubs, dates with various women, rivalries with colleagues, parties with vacuous associates, avoiding Luis (a closeted homosexual colleague of Bateman’s who confesses his secret love for him), and pointless disputes at restaurants and

was among those opposed to the release of Ellis' book because of its portrayal of violence towards women. Of all works published in the U.S.A. at that time, including those clearly carrying X ratings, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) selected American Psycho for special notice, stating that the book ‘legitimizes inhuman and savage violence masquerading as sexuality’. Judging the book ‘the most misogynistic communication’ the organisation had ever encountered, and on the grounds that ‘violence against women in any form is no longer socially acceptable’, NOW called for a boycott of the entire Random House catalogue for the remainder of 1991. Naomi Wolf agreed, calling the novel ‘a violation not of obscenity standards, but of women’s civil rights, insofar as it results in conditioning male sexual response to female suffering or degradation’. It is interesting to note however that Steinem’s stepson Christian Bale portrayed Bateman in the film adaptation of the novel. (http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/01-brien.php)

bars over pop culture and fashion trivia. Bateman dates several women besides his fiancée Evelyn, though without any deep feelings for anyone. He frequently solicits sex with attractive women (or ‘hardbodies’). He spends excessive time on his appearance, and persistently tries to outclass his colleagues, though the only significant difference between him and them is his preoccupation with criminal acts of rape, torture and murder.

Bateman’s serial killer interests are the subject of popular derision from his workmates and male friends, who view this interest as a macabre specialty hobby sideline, rather than as a sign that Bateman is a psychopathic serial killer. In the end, Bateman descends into despair as he ponders the futility of his actions. He cannot convince his own attorney of his murderous nature, and receives taunts for making up an unbelievable and absurd story. In the final paragraph, the closing image is of a sign in a bar that declares “This Is Not An Exit.” It remains unclear at the end whether his crimes were real or imaginary. (Wikipedia)

on the other hand,

it’s arguable that “Those who condemn it for being violent miss the point- it’s a fantasy. Those who praise it for being a satire miss the pointit’s a fantasy. Its best predecessor is not Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes From The Underground, but Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, another symbolic work that explores what a protagonist who feels the world shuns him will act like.” (http://www.yetanotherbookreview. com/american_psycho.htm)

Time and Spy magazines The New York Times: printed excerpts from the book before publication.

‘American Psycho’ lacks such a moral framework. Mr. Ellis teases us near the end into believing that Patrick Bateman may finally be brought to justice. But he isn’t; at the

Time chose a passage in which a woman is skinned alive, Spy a scene in which the narrator removes a victim's head and sodomizes it. Simon and Schuster, Ellis' publishing house, paid him a $300,000 advance on the book and then refuse d to publish the delivered manuscript after women in the firm and outside women's groups began protesting; before the protests the editors were simply performing the same revisions on the book that they would with any other novel. (http://wwwtech.mit.edu/V111/N18/jackso.18o.html)

index interview Interviewer: I always dislike the gay characters in your books.

BRET: I DON’T LIKE ANY OF THE CHARACTERS IN MY BOOKS. THAT’S WHAT I IMMEDIATELY THINK WHEN YOU SAY THAT. AND THERE REALLY AREN’T THAT MANY GAY CHARACTERS. Interviewer: Luis Carruthers in American Psycho.

BRET: I GUESS HE IS. BUT YOU HAVE TO REALIZE YOU’RE SEEING EVERYTHING IN AMERICAN PSYCHO THROUGH PATRICK BATEMAN’S CRAZED, WARPED MIND — PATRICK THINKS EVERYONE’S IN LOVE WITH HIM. I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUNNY AND INSTRUCTIVE TO HAVE A MAN BE ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO PATRICK SEES AS WANTING HIM. I MEAN, I WAS INTERESTED IN UNDERSCORING SOME OF THE HOMOEROTIC THINGS THAT WERE GOING ON IN THE CULTURE AT THE TIME, PARTICULARLY THE DANDIFICATION OF AMERICAN MALES. THAT’S WHAT AMERICAN PSYCHO IS ABOUT — MALE NARCISSISM, AND WHERE THAT MIGHT LEAD. Interviewer: It seems like a really hard book to translate into film.

BRET: I THINK THE MOVIE GOT PRETTY CLOSE TO THE TEMPERAMENT OF THE BOOK. BUT THE FILM IS A LIGHTER, FLASHIER, FUNNIER, NOT AS HARD-TOTAKE EXPERIENCE. IT’S NOT AS CRUEL AND NOT AS VIOLENT, OBVIOUSLY. Interviewer: One of the attributes of your characters, especially in that book, is their lack of empathy, their inability to connect.

a book whose very confusion of form and content has caused it to fail, and for that of-

BRET: THIS IS TRUE. AS A WRITER, I’M NOT REALLY INVESTIGATING ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS OR LOVE. MY WORK IS REALLY ABOUT A CULTURE THAT PISSES ME OFF, AND A WORLD THAT WE LIVE IN THAT VALUES ALL THE WRONG THINGS. I MEAN, THAT’S WHAT SATIRISTS WRITE ABOUT. YET I’VE BEEN IN LOVE, AND I’VE HAD RELATIONSHIPS. THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS THAT I’VE EXPERIENCED THAT I’VE NOT WRITTEN ABOUT BECAUSE I JUST DON’T FIND THEM THAT INTERESTING AS SUBJECTS.

fense and no other does one have cause to excoriate ‘American Psycho’.(nytimes.com)

(http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/bret_easton_ellis.shtml)

book’s close he is still at large. The author is saying that today such monstrous criminality is indistinguishable from the general behavior of society. But Mr. Ellis’s true offense is to imply that the human mind has grown so corrupt that it can no longer distinguish between form and content. He has proved himself mistaken in that assumption by writing

typesize bold italics typesize II rules & blocks spot color full color & graphics typeface

composition & space

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I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.

I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

A M E R I C A N P

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a novel

by Bret Easton Ellis

Vintage Contemporaries New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1 Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc.

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a Division of Random House, inc.

New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches.

I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub.

Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

My name is Patrick Bateman.

I’m 27 years old.

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis

Vintage Contemporaries New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1 Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc.

I’m 27 years old. on the 11th floor.

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine.

In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches.

I can do 1000 now.

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face out and makes you look older. no alcohol, because alcohol dries your Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

My name is Patrick Bateman.

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O a novel by Bret Easton Ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

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I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

a novel by Bret Easton Ellis

Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

bold italics typesize II rules & blocks spot color full color & graphics typeface

composition & space typesize

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor.

My name is Patrick Bateman.

I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herbmint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older.

Then moisturizer, then an antiaging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches.

I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated

gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub.

Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

a novel by bret easton ellis americanpsycho

my name is patrick ibuilding live in the american gardens on w.

81st street on the 11th floor. i’m 27 years old. i believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. in the morning if my face is apack little puffy i’ll put on an ice while doing stomach crunches. i can do 1000 now. after i remove the ice pack ilotion. use a deep pore cleanser in the shower i use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. then imask apply an herb-mint facial which i leave on for 10 minutes while i prepare the rest of my routine. i always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. then moisturizer, then an antiaging eyebalmfollowed bya final moisturizing protective lotion. vintagecontemporaries vintagebooksadivisionof randomhouse,inc. newyorkisbn0-679-73577-1

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older.

Then moisturizer, then an antiaging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O a novel by Bret Easton Ellis Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a Division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

italics typesize II rules & blocks spot color full color & graphics typeface

composition & space typesize bold

3

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

a m e r i c a n

p s y c h o

a novel by bret easton ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

a novel by bret easton ellis

a m e r i c a n

p s y c h o

I live in the American Gardens B u i l d i n g o n W. 8 1 s t S t r e e t o n t h e 11 t h f l o o r. M y n a m e i s Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine.

In the morning if my face is a l i t t l e p u ff y I ’ l l p u t o n a n ice pack while doing stomach c r u n c h e s . I c a n d o 1 0 0 0 n o w.

After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a wat e r a c t i v a t e d g e l c l e a n s e r, t h e n a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you l o o k o l d e r. T h e n m o i s t u r i z e r, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1 Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O a novel by Bret Easton Ellis I LIVE IN THE AMERICAN GARDENS BUILDING ON W. 81ST STREET ON THE 11TH FLOOR. MY NAME IS PATRICK BATEMAN. I’M 27 YEARS OLD. I BELIEVE IN TAKING CARE OF MYSELF AND A BALANCED DIET AND RIGOROUS EXERCISE ROUTINE. IN THE MORNING IF MY FACE IS A LITTLE PUFFY I’LL PUT ON AN ICE PACK WHILE DOING STOMACH CRUNCHES. I CAN DO 1000 NOW. AFTER I REMOVE THE ICE PACK I USE A DEEP PORE CLEANSER LOTION. IN THE SHOWER I USE A WATER ACTIVATED GEL CLEANSER, THEN A HONEY ALMOND BODY SCRUB, AND ON THE FACE AN EXFOLIATING GEL SCRUB. THEN I APPLY AN HERB-MINT FACIAL MASK WHICH I LEAVE ON FOR 10 MINUTES WHILE I PREPARE THE REST OF MY ROUTINE. I ALWAYS USE AN AFTER SHAVE LOTION WITH LITTLE OR NO ALCOHOL, BECAUSE ALCOHOL DRIES YOUR FACE OUT AND MAKES YOU LOOK OLDER. THEN MOISTURIZER, THEN AN ANTIAGING EYE BALM FOLLOWED BY A FINAL MOISTURIZING PROTECTIVE LOTION. Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

A M E R i C A N P S Y C H O a novel by bret easton ellis

my name is patrick bateman. i live in the american gardens building on w. 81st street on the 11th floor. i’m 27 years old. i believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. in the morning if my face is a little puffy i’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. i can do 1000 now. after i remove the ice pack i use a deep pore cleanser lotion. in the shower i use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. then i apply an herbmint facial mask which i leave on for 10 minutes while i prepare the rest of my routine. i always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES VINTAGE BOOKS A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC. NEW YORK ISBN 0-679-73577-1

americanpsycho a novel by bret easton ellis

my name is patrick ibuilding live in the american gardens on w.

81st street on the 11th floor. i’m 27 years old. i believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. in the morning if my face is apack little puffy i’ll put on an ice while doing stomach crunches. i can do 1000 now. after i remove the ice pack ilotion. use a deep pore cleanser in the shower i use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. then imask apply an herb-mint facial which i leave on for 10 minutes while i prepare the rest of my routine. i always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. then moisturizer, then an antiaging eyebalmfollowed bya final moisturizing protective lotion. vintagecontemporaries vintagebooksadivisionof randomhouse,inc. newyorkisbn0-679-73577-1

typesize II rules & blocks spot color full color & graphics typeface

composition & space typesize bold italics

l i v e i n t h e A m e r i c a n G a rd e n s B u i l d i n g o n W. 8 1 s t S t re e t o n t h e 11 t h f l o o r. M y n a m e i s P a t r i c k B a t e man. I’m 27 years old. I believe in t a k i n g c a re o f m y s e l f a n d a b a l a n c e d d i e t a n d r i g o ro u s e x e rc i s e ro u t i n e .

In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1 0 0 0 n o w. A f t e r I re m o v e t h e i c e p a c k I u s e a d e e p p o re c l e a n s e r l o t i o n . I n the shower I use a water activated g e l c l e a n s e r, t h e n a h o n e y a l m o n d body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave o n f o r 1 0 m i n u t e s w h i l e I p re p a re t h e re s t o f m y ro u t i n e . I a l w a y s u s e a n after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your f a c e o u t a n d m a k e s y o u l o o k o l d e r.

T h e n m o i s t u r i z e r, t h e n a n a n t i - a g i n g e y e b a l m f o l l o w e d b y a f i n a l m o i s t u ri z i n g p ro t e c t i v e l o t i o n .

I

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O a novel by Bret Easton Ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

a m e r i c a n p s y c h o a novel by bret easton ellis

MY NAME IS PATRICK BATEMAN. I LIVE IN THE AMERICAN GARDENS BUILDING ON W. 81ST STREET ON THE 11TH FLOOR. I’M 27 YEARS OLD. I BELIEVE IN TAKING CARE OF MYSELF AND A BALANCED DIET AND RIGOROUS EXERCISE ROUTINE. IN THE MORNING IF MY FACE IS A LITTLE PUFFY I’LL PUT ON AN ICE PACK WHILE DOING STOMACH CRUNCHES. I CAN DO 1000 NOW. AFTER I REMOVE THE ICE PACK I USE A DEEP PORE CLEANSER LOTION. IN THE SHOWER I USE A WATER ACTIVATED GEL CLEANSER, THEN A HONEY ALMOND BODY SCRUB, AND ON THE FACE AN EXFOLIATING GEL SCRUB. THEN I APPLY AN HERBMINT FACIAL MASK WHICH I LEAVE ON FOR 10 MINUTES WHILE I PREPARE THE REST OF MY ROUTINE. I ALWAYS USE AN AFTER SHAVE LOTION WITH LITTLE OR NO ALCOHOL, BECAUSE ALCOHOL DRIES YOUR FACE OUT AND MAKES YOU LOOK OLDER. THEN MOISTURIZER, THEN AN ANTI-AGING EYE BALM FOLLOWED BY A FINAL MOISTURIZING PROTECTIVE LOTION.

vintage contemporaries vintage books a division of random house, inc. new york isbn 0-679-73577-1

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine.

In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older.

Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

I’m 27 years old.

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine.

In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack doing stomach crunches.

I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice anser lotion. cle e por p pack I use a dee gel cleanser, then a honey almond body In the shower I use a water activated scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub.

Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave for 10 minutes. after shave lotion with little or an use I always

face out and makes you look older. no alcohol, because alcohol dries your Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

My name is

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

a n o v e l b y b re t e a s t o n e l l i s

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

a novel by Bret Easton Ellis I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor.

My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion.

In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.

I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older.

Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York ISBN 0-679-73577-1

rules & blocks spot color full color & graphics typeface

composition & space typesize bold italics typesize II

A M E R I C A N

B AT E M A N

I S

H A N D S O M E ,

W E L L -

educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post “The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair “A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin “A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

Bret Easton Ellis

twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

P S Y C H O

PAT R I C K

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor.

My name is Patrick Bateman.

I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herbmint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older.

Then moisturizer, then an antiaging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

a novel by Bret Easton Ellis

handsome, well-educated, intelligent. He works by d a y o n Wa l l S t re e t , e a r n i n g a f o r t u n e t o c o m p l e m e n t the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six y e a r s o l d a n d l i v i n g h i s o w n A m e r i c a n D re a m .

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

PS Y C H O

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

Bret Easton Ellis

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

A M E R I C A N

PAT R I C K B AT E M A N I S

I

l i v e i n t h e A m e r i c a n G a rd e n s B u i l d i n g o n W. 8 1 s t S t re e t o n t h e 11 t h f l o o r. M y name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I b e l i e v e i n t a k i n g c a re o f m y s e l f a n d a b a l a n c e d d i e t a n d r i g o ro u s e x e rc i s e ro u t i n e . I n the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches.

I c a n d o 1 0 0 0 n o w. A f t e r I re m o v e t h e i c e p a c k I u s e a d e e p p o re c l e a n s e r l o t i o n . I n t h e s h o w e r I u s e a w a t e r a c t i v a t e d g e l c l e a n s e r, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 1 0 m i n u t e s w h i l e I p re p a re t h e re s t o f m y ro u t i n e . I a l w a y s u s e a n a f t e r s h a v e l o t i o n with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries y o u r f a c e o u t a n d m a k e s y o u l o o k o l d e r. T h e n m o i s t u r i z e r, t h e n a n a n t i - a g i n g e y e b a l m f o l l o w e d b y a f i n a l m o i s t u r i z i n g p ro t e c t i v e l o t i o n .

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O a novel by Bret Easton Ellis

patrick bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post “The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair “A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

american psycho

fiction

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond

american psycho

bret easton ellis

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on

a novel by bret easton ellis

body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

fiction

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

patrick bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fanthom. He is twenty-six years old a nd

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin “A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

bret easton ellis

living his own American Dream.

amer rican psyc ho

american psycho

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street

on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous

exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an

ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove

the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water

activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an

exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an

after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your

face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

a novel by bret easton ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

fiction

B A T E M A N

is handsome, well educated, inte lligent. He works by day on one he was born wit the complement Wall Street, earning a fortune to h. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom.

He is twenty-six years old

A M E R I C A N

P A T R I C K

and living his own American Dream.

P S Y C H O

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

a no v el by b re t e ast o n e l l i s

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice er pack I use a deep pore cleans lotion. cleanser, then a honey almond body gel In the shower I use a water activated scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub.

Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave for 10 minutes. after shave lotion with little or an use ys I alwa

face out and makes you look older. no alcohol, because alcohol dries your Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

My name is

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair “A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

I’m 27 years old.

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine.

In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack doing stomach crunches.

A M E R I C A N

P S Y C H O

a n o v e l b y b re t e a s t o n e l l i s

spot color full color & graphics typeface

composition & space typesize bold italics typesize II rules & blocks

fiction

american psycho a novel by bret easton ellis

patrick bateman is

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post “The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

– N o r m a n M a i l e r, Va n i t y F a i r

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

bret easton ellis

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

– M i c h a e l To l k i n

american psycho

handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day o n Wa l l S t r e e t , e a r n i n g a f o r t u n e t o c o m p l e m e n t t h e one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

I live in the American G a r d e n s B u i l d i n g o n W. 8 1 s t S t r e e t o n t h e 11 t h f l o o r. M y n a m e i s P a t r i c k Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if m y f a c e i s a l i t t l e p u ff y I ’ l l put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches.

I c a n d o 1 0 0 0 n o w. A f t e r I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion.

In the shower I use a water a c t i v a t e d g e l c l e a n s e r, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.

I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and m a k e s y o u l o o k o l d e r. T h e n m o i s t u r i z e r, t h e n a n a n t i aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

a fiction

PATRICK

BATEMAN

IS

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes...

[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

Bret Easton Ellis

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

PSYCHO

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

AMERICAN

handsome, well educated, intelligent.

He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twentysix years old and living his own American Dream.

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes whileI prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

AMERICAN PSYCHO Bret Easton Ellis

patrick bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post “The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair “A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

american psycho

fiction

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now.

After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond

american psycho a novel by bret easton ellis

body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol,

bret easton ellis

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on

because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

amer rican psyc ho

patrick bateman is handsome,

well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fanthom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street

on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous

exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an

ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove

the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water

activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an

exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an

after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your

face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

by b re t e ast o n e ll is

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

american psycho

ap

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

a novel by bret easton ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

fiction

B A T E M A N

I S

well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with.

His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fanthom.

He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair “A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin “A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

AMERICAN PSYCHO

P A T R I C K

e r. M y n am e 11 th fl o o th n o t ee lf an d . 8 1 st S tr re o f m y se il d in g o n W ar d en s B u in ta k in g ca if m y fa ce is G e v an ie ic el b er I e Am rs o ld . o rn in g I li v e in th I’ m 2 7 y ea e. In th e m . I ca n d o B at em an . ci se ro u ti n h cr u n ch es er ac ex m o s u st ro is P at ri ck g o in g o ri lo ti o n . d r d e se il an n h t d ie p o re cl ea ic e p ac k w p ee an d a b al an ce d n a o ond t se m u h o n ey al ff y I’ ll p e p ac k I u a li tt le p u se r, th en a o v e th e ic n m ea re cl I el er g . A ft ti v at ed b.

1000 now a w at er ac g g el sc ru w er I u se ex fo li at in an ce In th e sh o fa th e b , an d o n b o d y sc ru

The n I appl y an herb -min t faci al mas k whi ch I leav e on for 10 min utes whi le I prep are the rest of my rout ine. I alwa ys use an afte r shav e lotio n with littl e or no alco hol, beca use alco hol drie s you r face out and mak es you look olde r. The n moi stur izer , then an anti -agi ng eye balm follo wed by a fina l moi stur izin g prot ecti ve lotio n.

A bret easton ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

HO C Y S P N A C I R E M a n o v e l b y b re t e a s t o n e l l i s

full color & graphics typeface

composition & space typesize bold italics typesize II rules & blocks spot color

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

ame rican psyc ho

patrick bateman is handsome,

well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fanthom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street

on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous

exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an

ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove

the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water

activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an

exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an

after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your

face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

b y bret ea s ton el l i s

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

american psycho

ap

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

a novel by bret easton ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

fiction

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

patrick bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fanthom. He is twenty-six years old a nd

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin “A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

bret easton ellis

living his own American Dream.

amer rican psyc ho

american psycho

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street

on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old.

I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous

exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an

ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove

the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water

activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an

exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an

after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your

face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

a novel by bret easton ellis Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

fiction

h a n d s o m e , w e ll educated, intelligent. He w o r k s b y d a y on Wall Street, earning a f o r t u n e t o c o mplement the one he was b o r n w i t h . H i s nights he spends in w a y s w e c a n not begin to fanthom.

H e i s t w e n t y - six years old and l i v i n g h i s o w n American Dream.

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

b re t e ast o n e lli s

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

AMERICAN PSYCHO

PAT R I C K B AT E M A N I S

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

I li v e in th e ens a n G a rd A m e ri c e e t o n th 1 s t S tr e 8 .

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“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes...

[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

AMERICAN PSYCHO

handsome, well educated, intelligent.

He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twentysix years old and living his own American Dream.

–Katherine Dunn

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

Bret Easton Ellis

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes whileI prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

AMERICAN PSYCHO Bret Easton Ellis

patrick bateman is handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.

–Michael Tolkin “A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

american psycho

fiction

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a

american psycho little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000

now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower

a novel by bret easton ellis

controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes...

[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

bret easton ellis

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully

face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use

an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

fiction

well educa ted, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–michael tolkin

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–fay weldon, the washington post “The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

– n o r m a n m a i l e r, v a n i t y f a i r

I live in the American Gardens Building on W. 81st Street on the 11th floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m 27 years old I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.

b re t e ast o n e lli s

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–katherine dunn

ame rican psyc ho

american psycho

patrick bateman is handsome,

a novel bret easton ellis

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

typeface

composition & space typesize bold italics typesize II rules & blocks spot color full color & graphics

8

fiction

handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on

Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn “Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

american psycho a novel by

bret easton ellis

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes... [Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

american psycho

patrick bateman is

bret easton ellis

fiction

B A T E M A N

I S

handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes...

[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

b re t e ast o n e ll i s

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

–Katherine Dunn

AMERICAN PSYCHO

P A T R I C K

AMERICAN PSYCHO a n o v e l b y b re t e a s t o n e l l i s

fiction

patrick bateman is

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes...

[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

american psycho

handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom.

He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

–Katherine Dunn “A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

b ret e as t o n e l l i s

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

american psycho

b re t e a s t o n e l l i s

fiction

patrick bateman is

Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

b re t e a s t o n e l l i s

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

–Katherine Dunn

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There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

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“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes...

[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

american psycho

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

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handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

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B A T E M A N

I S

handsome, well educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

–Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair

“A great novel. What Emerson said about genius, that it’s the return of one’s rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty, holds true for American Psycho... There is a fever to the life of this book that is, unknown in American literature.”

–Michael Tolkin

E L L I S

“Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer [and] American Psycho is a beautifully controled, careful, important novel... The novelist’s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he’s done it brilliantly... A seminal book.”

–Fay Weldon, The Washington Post

–Katherine Dunn

E A S T O N

“A masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing, which has large elements of Jane Austen at her vitriolic best. An important book.”

B R E T

“The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes...

[Ellis] is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock.”

american psycho

P A T R I C K

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Vintage Contemporaries Vintage Books a division of Random House, Inc

E A S T O N

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column settting business card scene & conclusion

typesize: 7 leading: 10.5 letterspacing: 25 excerpted text: fay weldon. “an honest american psycho: why we can’t cope with bret easton ellis’s new novel.” the guardian. april 25, 1991

Shall we consider New York, 1990? (New York today, every city in the world tomorrow.) ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’ scrawled in blood red lettering on the wall of a fine upstanding branch of The Chemical Bank? ‘Fear’, ditto, on the MacDonalds on Fourth and Seventh? In the newspapers, on the radio, on TV, snippets of murders, mayhem, torture, the cruelty of nice literary editors abusing babies, of beggars, buggers, and brutality. Love me tender, love me true, gone down the plughole. AIDS pulled out that saving plug so now we’re filthy: can’t wash ourselves clean.

Let’s enjoy the dirt. Film and record posters showing more, yet more: as if we couldn’t get enough, don’t get enough. Screaming women and crazed men (the paraphenalia of blood, sex, bondage, and violence) looking down from the hoardings.

Look up, not at the stars, but at a tortured, torturing humanity. Not just life but the human imagination (let me qualify that, the young man’s imagination) slipping, so far as we can see, out of control, over the cliff into chaos. Money, restaurants, designer labels, smart clothes, things: that’s all we’ve got, we smart young things, to cheer us up. And nobody is shocked.

Nothing shocks. We are stunned, we are brutalised.

Only the military, strangely (and more’s the pity for the rest of the world, who haven’t got to this stage yet, not quite) with their clean lined elegant weapons of death, their promise of purity and a neat, swift finality (if only they knew), seems able to return us our dignity and hope.

Shall we now consider the society hostesses of Manhattan, who, assuming Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho, featuring a cannibal murderer, to be autobiographical, continue to ask him to parties?

He has been heard of. That’s what counts. A little excitement, a little thrill. Okay for him to eat my sister’s brains, she’s on the game anyway, more or less, but I don’t suppose he’ll do it to me amongst the canapes.

And if he did, and if he did, is life really so much worse than death? Do come in, smart Mr Bret Easton Ellis, serial killer! It’s the year of the serial killing, isn’t it? Aren’t the films of the year about serial killers: murder for the fun of it? And we all clap and cheer. Me too, me too. All very well for Mailer to complain that the work’s ‘legitimate theme’ needs ‘a greater writer than Bret Easton Ellis’ to do it properly, but I reckon he’s done it properly; he’s done it proud. This man Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer. He gets us to a T. And we can’t stand it. It’s our problem, not his. American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel which revolves about its own nasty bits. Brilliant.

Because what’s the fuss about? Have you read any Clive Barker? Or have you read The Silence Of The Lambs, by Thomas Harris? Martin Cruz’s book about the Vampires? Everyone’s eating everyone (in the cannibalistic sense) because one thing leads to another, folks. These are good books, good writers I’m talking about. Blood everywhere! Stephen King’s fairly fearful. Such a nice guy, too: wouldn’t say boo to a goose. One flap of a gander’s wing and he’d apologise. Kind to little children too.

Read the King novel about the woman and child who spend a week in a car while a crazed killer dog pads around? Cujo, I think it’s called. The woman gets devoured. Cujo’s pretty male. Slaver, slaver, fangs and prick. Bats and rats and dogs today, people tomorrow. Look, I read all these books on the way home from Paddington Station. You’ve got to read something: and some of them are pretty good. Rats up ladies’ vaginas are nothing to me.

Had you wondered, folks, had you wondered? All those children up in the sequestered North: where did they get their funny peculiar Satanic stories from?

Why, from the video nasties. Fit meat for the children’s suppers. You ever seen a video nasty, all you people who get upset because Brat Easton Ellis, in a novel of 399 pages devoted almost entirely to the obsessive consolations offered by a society, itself in the grip of a psychotic fit of sado-masochism, scattered throughout a novel delineating why the serial killer kills, actually describes the detail of the killings. Why have you got so squeamish all of a sudden?

Of all the things you ought to censor, should have censored - because we now live in a world so terrible, so full of ‘Abandon Hope’ scrawled blood red on our city walls, someone has to start crying ‘enough’ - why pick on wretched, brilliant Bret Easton Ellis?

Young BEE? I’ll tell you why. It’s because there’s always been someone in the other books to play lip service to respectability: to the myth that the world we now live in is still capable of affect. The serial killer gets discovered, punished, stopped. There are people around to throw up their hands in horror, who can still distinguish between what is psychotic and what is not. Justice is done. There is remorse. Just not in American Psycho. And we hate him for saying it. In American Psycho not so. Nobody cares.

Slaughtered bodies lie undiscovered. The city has fallen apart. Nobody takes much notice. The police have other things to do. Those who are killed don’t rate - they are the powerless, the poor, the wretched, the sick in mind, the sellers of flesh for money: their own and other people’s. The tides of the city wash over them, erase their traces. The landlady, seeing her blood- spattered walls, is vexed because she needs to re-let quick. She doesn’t want a fuss, she wants her rent. Docilely, our anti-hero of the nineties (pray God), our hero of the eighties (young, unscrupulous, talented, highly-motivated, highly skilled, an asset to society) cleans up the walls, able to respond to this desire at least. Nowhere else can he find a response.

No matter what he does there is no effect.

So what do we cry? Ban the book! Disgusting!

Pervert! Let’s ask BEE to our party, watch him buzz.

After that we’ll take ourselves off to the cinema, watch a few flayed bodies; work ourselves in with Nightmare On Elm Street. The books and the films don’t create society, I promise you. They reflect it.

Our yuppie hero kills an abandoned dog, slices it with a knife, walks on. No one cares. Women get their kicks from bondage. Yuppie goes too far, the women get to bleed a bit, but they get paid. That’s enough for them. The whole world’s into bondage. Altzheimers or Armani, spermicidal lubricant or Ralph Lauren, everything on the same level. So he goes further. What’s the odds? Not a nice book, no, not at all, this portrait of psychotic America, psychotic us. Just enough to touch a dulled nerve or two, get an article or so written.

Picador, which is publishing American Psycho over here, is keeping the price high, or so one hears,

to keep the dreaded thing out of the hands of those who might, eschewing the video nasty, use scenes of torture and cannibalism as a tool for masturbation (though they don’t put it quite like that, of course, who does?) and then escalate to the real thing, in the same spirit as people escalate (or so they say) from dope to heroin.

Such dreadful unliterary people Picador seem to assume, are poor, uneducated. The wankers of the world. Can’t afford the hardback. Too abashed to go into a proper bookshop where the hardbacks sell.

Well, that’s hopeful of Picador. Publishers are nice folk. They see a world in which wealth and education will stop people being mass murderers and perverts.

Perhaps they’re right. I reckon Picador is publishing it because it’s a good book, this Book of BEE’s, this buzzer of a book. A seminal book.

The feminists, that’s me too, see BEE’s book as anti-woman. So it is. So’s the world increasingly.

Dead women, the stuff of fiction. It’s anti-dog too, and anti-beggar, and anti-child. Women, in BEE’s book, just seem to queue up to be murdered: tie me up and tie me down, as young men, joining the army, queue up to murder. I reckon if we can ban American Psycho as anti-women, and perhaps we should, a whole lot of anti-men books could be banned too.

Let’s ban Mailer. Incitement to murder the male . . . incitement to war, the other pornography.

Look, I don’t want you to actually read BEE’s book. I did it for you. I expect you have enough trouble with your own fantasies of revenge, as you wonder whether you’re brave enough to walk down your street late at night, take a trip on the Underground without taking BEE’s on board. It’s upsetting all right. Just don’t insult a novel without reading it first, that’s all I ask.

I wouldn’t go to the stake for it, as I would for Salman Rushdie’s right to publish The Satanic Verses. American Psycho is a novel written out of the American tradition - the novelist’s function to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture: and he’s done it brilliantly, but others are doing it too. And anyway no one is suggesting that Bret Easton Ellis should be killed, eaten alive, for writing it. Or not yet.

The Satanic Verses comes more out of a European tradition; its function not just to collate the world, but make sense of it: move it on a little further towards civilisation. Not much, but all we’ve got. God knows it’s an uphill struggle.

conclusion Hopefully the work speaks for itself— Instead, this space is more suited to thank:

Professor Henri Lucas Xarene Eskandar Various caffeinated beverages Peers (and professors) who pretend not to notice the tardiness Dunder & Mifflin