Horror & hedonism: Brett Easton Ellis is back
A longer version of the below post appeared on my Substack.
I read Less Than Zero in 2009 and was so enamored by Ellis’ ability to communicate the bleak glamour attached to coming-of-age 1980s Los Angeles that it lifted me out of a years-long reading rut. Ellis made me realize that fiction didn’t have to be self-serious to be “good.” It could be irreverent, sexy, and disturbing. When I found out (granted, a year after it was published) he’d written another coming-of-age/coming undone novel set in Los Angeles called The Shards, I purchased it immediately, knowing I was in for a stark and stylish treat.
The Shards is about a high school senior at Los Angeles’ prestigious Buckley school, whose name is…Bret Ellis (yes, it’s autofiction - wherein an author inserts themself into a fictional tale as a little postmodern treat). Bret is gay, but closeted, dating a popular girl, best friends with the captain of the football team, and convinced he can white knuckle his way through one more year of "playing the role” before he goes off to college on the East Coast, where he can be himself, once and for all. Until: a new student named Robert Mallory joins the class, enchanting everyone: except Bret, who is convinced Mallory is a sinister force, determined to shatter the illusory life he’s spent so many years building. As a series of break-ins and brutal murders begin to unfold across Los Angeles, Bret becomes increasingly convinced there’s something wrong with Robert - and that he’ll do much worse than break up their friend group unless Bret exposes him for who he really is.
The Shards is so many things: “not a good book if you want to sleep well” chief among them (I had nightmares every single night during the week I spent feverishly reading it). It’s also a transporting, meticulous depiction of Los Angeles: more than half of the book happens in cars - and he goes into (pleasantly, to me) mind-numbing detail about the various driving routes his characters take by way of immersing us as deeply as possible in his autofictional world (and perhaps communicating their mental states: the more distressed a character is, the longer and more aimless the drives they take; the more paranoid, the more convinced they are a car is following them; and they only ever seen relaxed when they’re ‘leaning against a hood’).
Beyond being an “LA” book, The Shards is also a story of the eighties. You can find a song reference on nearly every page: highly recommend listening along while you read. Bret sees The Shining and Chariots of Fire in theaters, him and his friends watch the Eagles break up onstage in Long Beach (did not know that happened), they see Pink Floyd perform The Wall - it’s a pop cultural feast for anyone with an interest in or tangential connection to the decade.