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Lunar Park
Word is Benicio Del Toro has been talking with Brett Easton Ellis about getting this on the silver screen. I’m quite excited about that, considering that Del Toro and Ellis are both big risk-takers in their respective professional fields. It would be quite a strange but spectacular piece of cinema. As usual, Ellis uses his signature style of incorporating his previous creations at various intervals within the novel. More than once, the ice-cold, manicured visage of Ellises most gruesome anti-hero Patrick Bateman appears like a doppelganger. Just as the monster haunts his creator in Shelley’s Frankenstein, so Bateman stalks his creator, reminding him that he is his ‘hideous progeny’, and there is no escape from the infamy of it. Ellis revisits old subjects like love, loss, hysteria, meaningless horror, addictions and obsessions, but with a bit more sensibility. I couldn’t see any traces of the Ellis that wrote ‘American Psycho‘ (thank god), but this also somehow disappointed me.Considering the above, I honestly believe that Lunar Park was a bit tame for me. Having read American Psycho, I was expecting something a little more graphic… but Ellis seems to have matured over the years. His writing has taken on the flavour of Stephen King, where it’s not the ‘horror’ that gets to you, but rather the ‘terror’ of possibilities that the novel brings to the reader.

There is however one very cool thing I have to mention about this novel that I especially got kick out of. Now, not many people would be proud that they share the same birthday as Ellis (they’d be afraid and very, very concerned) but I am. nd for this novel, he makes a very cool motif of it. It gave me the feeling that I was reading something very personal, something almost written for me, which is very rare. If you are lucky enough to be born March 7th, and like gothic/ horror novels, treat yourself to this one. Oh, and Bateman popping-up in obscure places will be the least of your worries; it’s the dog and the crow that you should watch out for… that was disturbing.

Ellis explores the broken paths of family relationships and psychic degeneration and the negative effects this has on the various fictional members of his family. He especially touches on the father-son connection (which, some of you might know, reflects Ellis’ own personal problems with his father). The conflicts are subtle, the changes that occur are like the passing phases of the moon, edging the characters into a lunacy that they have felt creeping up on them for some time.

Although it’s not as GRAPHIC as I hoped it would be, it is nonetheless a powerful novel. I certainly felt that Ellis was doing what he is best known for, going to a place deep inside himself that the majority of writers would rather avoid. Part autobiography, part fiction, Ellis ventures the darkness of his own psyche, and invites us along for the ride. I give this 3/5 stars.

Note: if anyone knows just WHAT Lunar Park stands for, give me a buzz… I still haven’t worked it out yet.
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