Plot

American Psycho is set in the late 1980s, mainly in Manhattan, and gives an account of roughly two years in the life of Patrick Bateman, the novel's protagonist and narrator. Bateman, 26 years old at the beginning of the story, relates his antics as a serial killer, although the reliability of his narration is called into doubt toward the end of the novel.

Coming from a privileged background - the character is a graduate of Philips Exeter Academy and Harvard (class of '84) and works as a Wall Street banker at the fictional firm of Pierce & Pierce - Bateman has become the image of the 1980's yuppie.

In the novel, Bateman describes how he kills and tortures a number of people, including:

• Beautiful young women ("hardbodies"), never older than Bateman himself, whom he punishes for being what they are: friends or former friends of his. Examples are his ex-girlfriend Bethany, prostitutes, and escort girls.
• Business rivals, particularly a man named Paul Owen (Paul Allen in the film version), whom he kills in his own apartment.
• The poor, homeless, and unemployed men he chances across in the streets of Manhattan, whom he refers to as the "genetic underclass." For example, a black beggar whom, on a whim, he blinds and whom he meets again at the end of the novel.
• People from different ethnic backgrounds (apart from the beggar mentioned above, a Chinese delivery boy, whom he mistakes for Japanese).
• Innocent people he randomly comes across in the street, including a young boy he stabs at the zoo in Central Park, a gay man with a dog, and a saxophonist.
• At one point in the novel, people he shoots while he is being chased by the police (including a taxi driver, a policeman, a night watchman, and a janitor).
• Animals such as dogs and rats.

Unlike many real-life serial killers, Bateman lacks a particular or consistent methodology. He tortures and kills his victims in a variety of ways which are often outrageous, using a wide variety of implements ranging from guns and knives to power tools and live rats, amongst others. It is also interesting to consider those whom Bateman chooses to spare on being presented with the opportunity to kill. Three prominent examples are his secretary Jean, his fiancée Evelyn Williams, and a gay friend and coworker, Luis Carruthers. Perhaps he is not able to kill any of them because they are all in love with him (doubts are allowed concerning his fiancée).

Greed, envy, and disgust - along with his murderous rage and the sadistic pleasure he takes in killing - are Bateman's dominant emotions. Some facile sympathy is shown in his nostalgia for sentimental love and his appreciation of pop music. The character also has a wicked sense of humour, and shows an ironic, sometimes determined, awareness of the misery and futility of his life. By the end of the novel, even the thought of killing fails to arouse any feeling in him, and the final image is of a sign in a bar, declaring, This Is Not An Exit.

Bateman's personality

On the surface, Bateman exemplifies the image of the successful Manhattan executive. He is well-educated, wealthy, belongs to a prominent family, has a high-paying job, lives in a chic upscale apartment complex, is unusually popular with women, and keeps up with cultural trends. In sum, Bateman passes for a refined, intelligent, and thoughtful young man. But this public persona is sharply contrasted with his alter ego: in addition to murder, he tortures his victims, engages in violent sex, and commits acts of cannibalism and necrophilia.

Bateman is extremely style-conscious and appears to be an expert in matters of fashion and high-end consumer products. He frequently goes into exhaustive detail describing his and other people's possessions, even including trivial articles such as ink pens, socks, and pocket squares. He often describes his own wardrobe and accessories, including the material of which they are made, the name of the designer, and the store from which they were purchased (curiously, despite the exhaustive detail given to design, material, and manufacturer, Bateman rarely describes the color or pattern of his or anyone else's clothing). In the course of the novel Bateman answers trivial queries with incisive authority, advising his friends and coworkers on subjects such as the difference between various types of mineral water, the proper way to wear a cummerbund, pocket square, or tie bar, which tie knot is less bulky than a Windsor knot, and other trivialities.

Bateman loathes male homosexuality and rejects any advance (real or imagined) by "faggots." He is especially offended by Luis Carruthers, who confesses his love for him but who ends up marrying a woman out of a combination of convenience and peer pressure. On three separate occasions he coerces two women into having sex with one another, torturing or killing them afterwards in two cases; lesbianism appears to be one of Bateman's recurring fantasies, and on several occasions he rents "shemale" pornography.

Another of Bateman's inconsistencies is in his lifestyle and attitude to health. On the one hand, he is health conscious - a militant non-smoker (except for an occasional cigar) who works out, drinks diet soda, and orders decaffeinated espresso - while, on the other hand, he consumes large amounts of alcohol and drugs. This inconsistency is shared by other characters in the novel. Bateman's vanity is paramount, rather than a genuine care for health and well-being: obesity and tobacco-stink excite disgust, while cocaine abuse leaves few physical tell-tale signs. The focus of much of the narrative is on Bateman's attempts to "score" cocaine, and yet he is judgmental of his brother's use of the drug, and of several other freebasers.

Bateman is a music fan: he disdains rap music as too "niggerish," but otherwise closely follows the pop and rock scene of his time. Some chapters are exclusively dedicated to analysis of the careers of pop groups and singers such as Genesis, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis and The News. Throughout the book, he insists his favorite band is Talking Heads, which released a song entitled "Psycho Killer" - although it is not obvious that Bateman is aware of this.

Bateman's job is a sinecure, and he feels no need to apply himself to his work, because of the influence and wealth of his family. However, his envy of his peers, both in their business successes and the colossal fortunes of their families, runs throughout the novel. Within his own compass, Bateman is supreme, usually turning up to work late - sometimes by more than an hour - and indulging in long lunches. While in the office, he appears to spend much of his time pursuing trivial amusements, such as listening to music, watching television, scribbling on notepads, or completing crossword puzzles. At one point he states that while he has no financial need to work, he prefers to hold a job simply to "fit in."

Themes and symbolism

One question that has often been asked by readers is why Bateman is never caught, let alone convicted, despite the attentions of a well-dressed detective. It is never made clear why the police fail to track Bateman down - they are perhaps incompetent, or careless, or just too busy due to the soaring crime rate in New York City.

As it turns out, Bateman fails to attract official suspicion, despite the casual manner in which he disposes of the bodies of his victims. He keeps the videos of the killings he has taped right in his apartment, and repeatedly and comically confesses his crimes to bored acquaintances, casually blurting out statements such as, "I'm a fucking evil psychopath", and that he likes to dissect girls. But no one appears to be listening or to take him seriously.

Bateman attends a Halloween party at his place of work "disguised" as a mass murderer, wearing a suit covered with real blood and, in his buttonhole, the finger bone from one of his victims. His maid regularly cleans up the mess in his apartment without asking any questions, and his Chinese dry cleaners clean his blood-stained clothes without suspecting anything. Even the women with whom Bateman associates most closely fail to become suspicious.

At the end of the novel, the reader is left to wonder if the narrator has imagined most, if not all, of his murderous acts. This sense is backed up by the over-the-top and seemingly impossible nature of several of the killings, and by the ambiguous reactions of several characters to the situations set up in Bateman's narrative. For example, he often describes his victims alive and in agony after he has violently assaulted them in ways which should kill them, such as when he claims that Paul Owen takes five minutes to die even after a series of blows with an axe has forced his brain through a wound in his face.

Following one episode, in which he has committed a bloody murder in his apartment, Bateman's maid comes in to do the cleaning and registers nothing out of the ordinary. In one chapter, in which he behaves outrageously at a restaurant before luring his ex-girlfriend to his apartment and killing her, the phrase "but since I'm really dreaming all this" is inserted casually into a sentence. During the outlandish "chase scene" in which Bateman escapes after murdering several people and engaging in a public shootout with the police, the narration of the action switches back and forth between the first and third person. Bateman also frequently points out, in the aftermath of his killings, that his victims' bodies have injuries which he does not remember inflicting. On the odd occasion, Bateman describes events which are necessarily either products of delusion or outright fantasy; in the closing chapter, Bateman claims that a park bench followed him home, talking to him, and that an ATM has been ordering him to feed it cats.

A conversation between Bateman and another character, Harold Carnes, at the book's closure is considered by some to be firm evidence that Bateman is imagining his crimes. Carnes ridicules Bateman's confession to the killing of the character Paul Owen, claiming to have dined twice with Owen in London. However, this may well be another of the many instances of mistaken identity within the novel, given the fact that Carnes fails to recognize Bateman himself, addressing him by two incorrect names within the space of one conversation. In addition, at one point Bateman is captured by a cab driver who claims to recognize Bateman's face from a wanted poster in connection with the murder of another cabbie named Solly. While being briefly held at gunpoint by the cabbie, Bateman struggles to recall if Solly's description fits that of any of his victims, and ultimately Bateman is left unsure whether or not he really killed Solly.

The contradiction in Bateman's life - between the life he boasts of and the life implied by his observation of his surroundings - is realised in the way he is perceived by his friends and associates. Publicly, he expresses concern for the well-being of the less fortunate and disapproval of materialism, violent crime, economic disparity, and racial discrimination. Many women find him charming, while he is ridiculed by his colleagues as a "goody-goody" and nicknamed "The Boy Next Door." But his ability to maintain (or chafe beneath) this image within his social circle, while secretly seeing himself as a depraved serial killer who also holds strong racist and classist views, is the essence of the character.

Another recurring irony in American Psycho is that, despite the time, money, and effort the characters expend to enhance their personal appearance and stand out amongst their colleagues, they often resemble each other, and are mistaken for other people. Bateman himself is often referred to by other names throughout most or all of a conversation: Paul Owen repeatedly mistakes Bateman for a fellow colleague, Marcus Halberstam, even while Bateman takes him out to dinner, brings him back to Owen's own apartment, and murders him.

Several leitmotifs are present in both the novel and the film. First, there is the recurring reference to a Broadway production of Les Misérables. The title of this musical lends itself to a comparison with the Wall Street yuppies depicted in the novel who, it might be argued, are the real miserable ones. Second, there is Bateman's urge to "return some video-tapes," graphic, paraphilia themed pornography; throughout the book, Bateman also repeatedly rents Body Double, so that he can masturbate to a scene in which a woman is killed with a power drill. Bateman also frequently uses returning videotapes as an excuse when asked by jealous young women what he was doing last night or what he is going to do tonight. In the novel this phrase is used as a euphemism for torturing and killing people. Another recurring event is Bateman's frequent mention of the "Patty Winters Show," a fictional daytime talk-show (apparently patterned after Sally Jesse Raphael) with sensationalistic topics that are either exploitative to the guests or simply bizarre (such as a woman with multiple personalities with names like "Lambchop.") The audience's reactions to the plights of the guests are often shallow or apathetic. As the novel progresses, the guests and topics of the program become increasingly unreal (possibly a symptom of Patrick's growing hallucinations, such as the talking park bench), to the point that Patty Winters is described as interviewing a Cheerio.

One view that can be taken from the book is that it is essentially a satire on the decadence of the 1980's and the American business machine. Since there is almost no continuity in the book and very little consequence to Bateman's over the top antics one must assume that it is simply meant to be exagerated for morbid humor. Bateman's whole life seems to revolve around how others perceive him, and thus he is an expert on trends of the 80's. Yet he has no personality of his own, this suggests that he is a metaphor for the "plastic" aspects 1980s. Additionally it can be said that Bateman and his business associates were all uncaring people only concerned with their personal gain and would step on anyone to get it, cut-throat one might say. Other themes of the 1980's appear in Bateman's personality, such as his disdain for homosexuals and hookers. Both were seen as the primary culprits of the newly discovered AIDS virus. Bateman uses drugs, however he never partakes in the use of needles, also a factor in spreading the AIDS virus.

Trivia

• Real-life Canadian serial killer Paul Bernardo was a huge fan of the novel. A copy of the book was found in the bedroom of the home in St. Catharines that he shared with his wife, Karla Homolka. Controversy was generated over whether Mr. Bernardo committed his crimes in response to his fascination with the book's events. However, the book's main character, Patrick Bateman, operated on his own, whereas Mr. Bernardo's wife played an active role in helping him commit his real-life crimes.
• About half way through the book, Pat Bateman is called 'Batman' as a joke by a female friend. In the film, Christian Bale played Bateman, and later went on to play Batman in 2005's Batman Begins.
• In a hint towards his mental state, Bateman claims that the saddest song he had ever heard was 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' by The Beatles. However it was musical rivals The Rolling Stones who sang the song.
• The book was originally to be published by Simon & Schuster in March of 1991, but the company decided to back off the project due to the novel's content. Vintage Books ended up buying the rights to the novel, and published an edited version of Easton's original manuscript. Some say the book was not changed all that much, while others have contended that the version that is in circulation today is significantly toned down from Easton's original piece.
• The book features an appearance by Patrick Bateman's brother, Sean Bateman, who was one of the central characters in Bret Easton Ellis's previous book, The Rules of Attraction (1987). Patrick Bateman made a brief appearance in Rules and narrated one chapter, and both Bateman brothers appear briefly in another Ellis novel, Glamorama (1998).
• Welsh rock group, the Manic Street Preachers, wrote and recorded a song entitled "Patrick Bateman" in 1992 (Manics' lyricists Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire being fans of Ellis's book). The Manics originally intended for the song to be a single, but instead it ended up as a B-side on their 1993 single, "La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)." Interestingly, the music score of the film version of American Psycho was written by another Welsh musician, John Cale, and the lead role of Patrick Bateman was played by Christian Bale, who is Welsh.
• Patrick Bateman's address at 129 West 81st Street is referenced in the Seinfeld second-season episode "The Stranded."
• Ellis goes into great detail when describing the clothing in American Psycho; he has admitted that he himself is not fashion-conscious but puts in ridiculous amounts of research to get the facts right. In a recent interview he explained how he could write in such detail and how he played a little trick on his readers:

"Research. I don't like clothes. I wrote two novels, one around the fashion industry and one around clothes whores, and it was all research. It was looking through GQ and seeing what the guys on Wall Street were wearing, since every other pictorial during those two years had guys hanging out in front of various office buildings downtown. Also, what a lot of people don't realize, and what I had a lot of fun with, is that if you really saw the outfits Patrick Bateman describes, they'd look totally ridiculous. He would describe a certain kind of vest with a pair of pants and certain kind of shirt, and you think, 'He really must know so much,' but if you actually saw people dressed like this, they would look like clowns. It was a subtle joke. If you read it on a surface level and know nothing about clothes, you read American Psycho and think, 'My God, we're in some sort of princely kingdom where everyone just walked out of GQ.' No. They look like fools. They look like court jesters, most of them." ^*

• According to several sources, Bret Easton Ellis received numerous death threats and hate mail after the publication of American Psycho. ^*

International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs)

• ISBN 0671663976 (hardcover, 1991)
• ISBN 0679735771 (paperback, 1991)
• ISBN 8440637128 (paperback, 2000)
• ISBN 2020253801 (paperback, 2000)
• ISBN 346202261X (paperback, 2000)
• ISBN 033048477X (paperback, 2000)
• ISBN 033049189X (paperback, 2002)

See also

• Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), a short novel about a kind and intelligent physician who turns into a psychotic monster after imbibing a drug intended to separate good from evil in a personality.
• the novels of Stewart Home, for example Cunt (1999).
• Hannibal Lecter - Another fictitious villain who lives an amoral life of high culture.
• List of banned books.
• Aestheticization of violence.

External links

• Review of the novel
• Another take on the novel
• MESSIER, Vartan. "Pornography and Violence: The Dialectics of Transgression in Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho." This chapter (in PDF), taken from "Canons of Transgression: Shock, Scandal, and Subversion from Matthew Lewis's The Monk to Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho." Dissertation Abstracts International 43:4 (2005): 1085 (University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez), provides an in-depth analysis of the novel.

1991 novels | Banned books | Bret Easton Ellis novels | Satirical books

American Psycho | American Psycho (film) | アメリカン・サイコ | Американский психопат | American Psycho