Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

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Has anybody read this? I haven't yet, although I read an article in the Observer about it the other day. A novel where the main character is a certain 'Bret Easton Ellis' who has written a novel called 'American Psycho' and who is confronted by someone doing copycat American Psycho killings. In the novel, the 'Bret Easton Ellis' character is straight, married with kids. In real life he's gay, which I only just found out reading the Observer article. Actually I was quite surprised to find out he was gay. I wonder what sort of light that throws on all the misygonistic sexual violence of American Psycho... interesting.

― JZ, Thursday, 18 August 2005 12:54 (twenty years ago)

I have absolutely no desire to read this book.

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 August 2005 12:57 (twenty years ago)

oooh, meta. wake me up in the '90s.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 18 August 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

Well, I suspect it will be crap, but I'm kind of intrigued anyway. I suppose I'm a sucker for all that Paul Auster-ish stuff of authors walking into their own novels etc.

― JZ, Thursday, 18 August 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

I've read the first 80 pages or so and am enjoying it immensely so far--genius parody of self-pitying memoirs.

― Douglas (Douglas), Thursday, 18 August 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

Meta-novels are written by contemporary novelists when their imaginations have run aground.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 18 August 2005 13:57 (twenty years ago)

'it's okay, i'm just parodying myself... but not really'

― N_RQ, Thursday, 18 August 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Would this be a good novel to read if you hate his writing style, Douglas?

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 August 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

Is this out??? I thought BEE had retired from the book biz

― Baaderonixx on a long black leash (Fabfunk), Thursday, 18 August 2005 14:01 (twenty years ago)

Big piece in the paper last weekend suggests that the Bateman is a ringer for BEE's highly-strung very alpha-male dad, and so is the Bret depicted in this new book.

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 18 August 2005 14:05 (twenty years ago)

(without the multiple ho'micides?)

― N_RQ, Thursday, 18 August 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)

Meta-novels are written by contemporary novelists when their imaginations have run aground.

But Bret Easton Ellis's novels have all been meta, with characters from early novels wandering in and out, as well as characters from other people's novels. I think there's a whole generation of novelists (ie those forty and under) who simply accept a certain amount of meta-ness as part of the culture itself anyway.

― JZ, Thursday, 18 August 2005 14:09 (twenty years ago)

im looking forward to it, and ignoring the reviews--who told me that one of the few p[eices of btilliant american satire (glamourama) was awful

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 18 August 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

I didn't like Glamorama but I'm a huge fan of everything else. I will definitely try this one out. The premise sounds good. I remember him saying at a reading that he used to date Donna Tartt.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 18 August 2005 16:04 (twenty years ago)

Donna Tartt is so much the better stylist.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 18 August 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

i read the synopsis, and it said something about it being a combination memoir/ stephen king-style horror novel, but, being 200 or so pages in, the clear inspiration for this book is none other than Hamlet itself.

ive read all of Mr. Ellis' stuff, and i have to say that this book is probably the most heartfelt thing he's ever produced. im truly in love with it. if you are looking for preppies on coke, this isn't the book. its about fathers, sons, the suburbs, and the horrors of each.

― JD from CDepot, Thursday, 18 August 2005 16:43 (twenty years ago)

That sounds great!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 18 August 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

its really an amazing book. he says in the first chapter that everything that occurs afterwards actually happened, and i know its a satire of the memoir/stephen king thing (blah blah), but i really cant shake the feeling that it IS the most honest thing he's ever written. just astoundingly, shockingly, horrifically beautiful.

― JD from CDepot, Thursday, 18 August 2005 17:01 (twenty years ago)

I've been anticipating...

― Drowning Man (Barima), Thursday, 18 August 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

i came v close to preordering this on amazon.com, but was put off by the postage and the fact that i have enough of a reading backlog that i wouldn't get on to it for a couple of weeks anyway. i figure i'll pick it up in montreal next month instead (i don't think it's out here til mid october).

― toby (tsg20), Thursday, 18 August 2005 18:56 (twenty years ago)

from the description alone it really sounds like a stephen king novel!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 18 August 2005 18:58 (twenty years ago)

(I'm guessing the answer to my earlier question is "No"?)

― The Ghost of Black Elegance (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 August 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

yeah, essentially.

but its so good (i know im raving here) this novel reminds you that hamlet is, more than anything else, a ghost story. im tempted to say its the best thing ellis has ever done, but i want to wait a few weeks and re-read his other stuff

― JD from CDepot, Thursday, 18 August 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

i wish i had preordered it now! still, i'll have it in 4 weeks.

― toby (tsg20), Thursday, 18 August 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

i just finished it, and im sobbing.

im sorry, so many people will read this book and be jaded, or not get it, or shrug and say meta, but god, i swear its an achievement.

simply beautiful

― JD from CDepot, Friday, 19 August 2005 04:01 (twenty years ago)

my problem with bret easton ellis is that he is SUCH a lousy stylist! he's got great ideas for books (american psycho especially is a brilliant concept), but he just ruins them with his awful awful prose. that's not writing, that's namedropping.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 19 August 2005 04:08 (twenty years ago)

i understand. glamorama was full of that. and bret isn't my favorite author, by any means.

but this book is so different from his earlier stuff. maybe not style wise, but content, i guess. fathers and sons. hamlet. i dunno, maybe i have a lousy fucking relationship with my father so thats why lunar park has hit me like a ton of bricks.

― JD from CDepot, Friday, 19 August 2005 04:13 (twenty years ago)

I'm looking forward to this but I'm hoping that he's not doing a Doug Copeland.

― Baaderonixx on a long black leash (Fabfunk), Friday, 19 August 2005 08:36 (twenty years ago)

Finished it earlier today and i'm letting it sink in...

I'm pretty mixed on it...lots of it reads too much like a therapy session to me and certain scenes/chapters were terribly written (lots of the action scenes; BEE's strong suit has always been carefully crafting descriptive caracatures, set pieces, etc.)

I agree that you can read it as a send up of the literary memoir>>turmoil>>horror-genre (to the extent those exist) but i didn't take it as saying anything terribly interesting in its critique.

― Jimmy_tango, Friday, 19 August 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

I used to read him a lot but I'm pretty sure I will NEVER read this book. sorry.

― Adam In Real Life (nordicskilla), Friday, 19 August 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

this is pretty great! bits of it are fucking fantastic (esp the first 100 pages or so - some of the best stuff he's ever written). i'm not totally sure what i think of the horror stuff - the meta stuff works really well though, i think.

maybe i should give glamorama another go...

― toby (tsg20), Sunday, 11 September 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

I saw him read tonight at Olssons in DC. he was so funny. READ THIS BOOK. its not meta, its not like his old work, i swear its so good.

(ive said this upthread about a bazillion times, sorry. but i did get to see him read.)

― JD from CDepot, Thursday, 15 September 2005 01:16 (twenty years ago)

nine months pass...

Finished it yesterday. A very mixed bag, but in general I liked it. As someone said upthread, the first hundred pages or so are pretty great - well-written, funny satire of himself and his scene, but with dark edges of ominousness. Then it slips - stylistically and thematically - into pulp horror territory. Haunted houses, possessed toys coming to life, exorcisms etc. I don't think this works at all. Yeah, some of the ideas are good, but (again as someone said upthread) he just can't do that action stuff and the writing here is bad as he strains for effect. But then at the end, the novel switches mood yet again and we're in elegiac territory, identities shifting, fathers and sons and eras all blurring into one... I think he just about pulls off.

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:23 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

this was good

― akm, Sunday, 17 February 2008 18:48 (eighteen years ago)

I like the little alternate history of himself and recent US events in the first few chapters. With some of the more melodramatic parts like the marriage counselling I couldn't tell whether he was joking or not.

― Bodrick III, Sunday, 17 February 2008 18:53 (eighteen years ago)

I think it is genuinely touching at times

― akm, Sunday, 17 February 2008 19:01 (eighteen years ago)

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