The Shards | Brett Easton Ellis
In true Easton Ellis style, the renowned author of American Psycho returns with a newly disturbing, semi-autobiographical tale dripping with red herrings, doubts and melodrama.
Narrated by an adolescent version of himself, Ellis details the supposed events of his senior year in 1980s Los Angeles, when a serial killer began targeting a group of his friends. But all is not as it seems. Being young, deceitful – and often high on drugs, alcohol or a pairing of the two – our narrator’s story, though aggressive in its presenting of ‘fact’, doesn’t always appear so between the lines. Who is The Trawler, how does he choose his victims and how can we tell the difference between truth and fiction?
A fantastically chilling novel that will stop you falling asleep, and haunt your days in much the same way as The Trawler haunted Bret. An absolute must read for January 2023. Warning: R rated.