The Best Things About American Psycho Are Also the Worst

From my teens onwards I always had a keen interest in the darker side of humanity. I guess that has stuck with me all my life. I never really wanted to inhabit it, even though, because of my own vices, there have been times when I have.

But anything grey or black was almost always more intriguing to me, or made the pure and good seem even more impressive by comparison.

I'd have chosen Trainspotting, but in my eyes that book is nigh-on perfect. It would have been straight-up lying if I'd entered my dissection of it for Sasha's challenge.

Two books I discovered because of their uncomfortable subject matter were Crash by J. G. Ballard and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

One follows a man who becomes involved with a group of people who derive sexual pleasure from car crashes. The other is the infamous satire of Wall Street yuppies, consumerism and toxic masculinity in the 1980s.

Both were adapted into fascinating films by daring directors. David Cronenberg brought Crash to the screen, while Mary Harron adapted American Psycho.

James Spader and Holly Hunter led the cast of Crash, while Christian Bale arguably landed one of the defining roles of his career as Patrick Bateman—a performance that would eventually become an internet meme.

The '90s were full of challenging books, films and television, and I loved that.

Perhaps that was partly because people kept saying, "Don't read that book. It's horrible."

I'm sure Nabokov and Dostoevsky suffered similar reactions in their own time.

Yes, I deliberately mentioned literary giants alongside these controversial books.

That was the point I was making.

I'll happily stand on a hill and defend American Psycho, but as is the nature of Sasha's challenge, I also have to call into question some of its weaknesses.

In many ways, just like my critique of The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails, many of the book's greatest strengths are also the things that make it difficult to recommend.

Let's start with the softer criticisms.

Obsessive Repetition

There is a huge amount of repetition throughout this novel.

Because it's told in the first person, we repeatedly follow Patrick through his morning routine, his exercise routine, his skincare routine, his obsession with clothes, business cards, restaurants and appearances.

The repetition is deliberate. It's there to reinforce his obsessive personality and empty existence.

But deliberate doesn't always mean enjoyable.

If you're not prepared for pages of repeated routines and minute detail, it can become tedious.

Longer Than It Needs to Be

It's no War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings, but considering what actually happens, American Psycho probably runs longer than it strictly needs to.

Again, that's a stylistic choice rather than a flaw born of poor editing, but it's still something some readers will struggle with.

Enough Gore to Make a Splatterpunk Fan Queasy

Patrick Bateman is either a serial killer or a man who desperately wants to believe he is.

Whichever interpretation you favour, the violence he describes is extreme.

He delights in recounting horrific murders in graphic detail. At one point there's literally a severed head sitting in his fridge, for fuck's sake.

It's easy to understand why so many readers put the book down.

This isn't your average unreliable narrator story.

It's relentless.

Female Characters Are Distilled into Stereotypes

This is probably the fairest criticism that can be levelled at American Psycho.

Many of the women exist primarily through Patrick Bateman's misogynistic gaze and never develop into fully rounded characters in their own right.

Now, I would argue that this isn't a problem exclusive to the women. Patrick reduces almost everyone to stereotypes. Men become suits, business cards, restaurants, status symbols and competitors. Women become objects of desire, disgust or violence. That's part of the satire.

Even so, I think Bret Easton Ellis could have found room for a little more nuance. The novel might not have lost any of its power if one or two female characters had been allowed to exist beyond Patrick's warped perception.

Whether that lack of nuance is a deliberate artistic choice or simply a limitation of the novel is something readers can decide for themselves.

Satire So Subtle It Sometimes Disappears

If I had to pick the book's biggest weakness, it would also be one of its greatest strengths.

Bret Easton Ellis writes satire and black comedy that skirts so close to sincerity that it sometimes becomes almost impossible to separate one from the other.

Patrick Bateman is written so convincingly that many readers mistake the novel for an endorsement of the very culture it's ridiculing.

My own theory is that many people approached American Psycho already convinced it was nothing more than violent, misogynistic trash and never allowed themselves to recognise the dry, uncomfortable and extraordinarily accurate satire hiding beneath all the blood.

It probably doesn't help that Bret Easton Ellis has spent much of his career cultivating the image of a provocateur. In interviews he has often seemed perfectly happy to antagonise critics and leave them wondering where the satire ends and his own opinions begin. Whether that's part of the performance or simply his personality is another debate entirely.

I'll always love American Psycho, but I'll also happily discuss its flaws alongside its brilliance.

That's probably the highest compliment I can pay it.

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Thanks for reading!

This is one of two entries in the BookClub community for Sasha's challenge.