Background information

Bret Easton Ellis and his background

Bret Easton Ellis is an American author best known for his provocative and controversial novel American Psycho, which made a significant impact on contemporary literature and popular culture. Ellis was born in 1964 in Los Angeles, California, where he also grew up. He attended Bennington College in Vermont, where he studied writing.

He published his first novel, Less Than Zero in 1985, when he was 21. The book explored the lives of wealthy youth with questionable morals in Los Angeles. This book was followed by The Rules of Attraction in 1987, which was another dark exploration of the pleasure-seeking lives of privileged college students. However, it was American Psycho that made Ellis popular.

Initially, Ellis claimed his father was abusive to him when he was young and the character of Patrick Bateman was inspired by him. He later retracted this and said the character was inspired by Ellis’ own isolation and alienation when he was writing the novel. He explained that he had not set out to write a criticism of “yuppie culture”, but that the novel came from his own habits around consumerism as a means to gain confidence and feel good about himself.

Ellis is known for his provocative and often controversial statements in interviews and ...