With "The Shards," Bret Easton Ellis returns to his senior year of high school. The novel is an autofictional depiction of how the 17-year-old aspiring writer lies, fantasizes and becomes obsessed. A behavior that has affected the author to this day.
"I was a notorious liar. I made up and spread a lot of rumors," says Bret Easton Ellis.
"A murder mystery and horror story"
The novel depicts the life of a group of friends marked by sex and drugs. The character Bret is writing what will become his debut novel at the same time as a serial killer called The Trawler shakes Los Angeles.
When a new boy joins the class and is in danger of breaking up the tight-knit group of friends, it doesn't take long before Bret begins to suspect who the killer is.
"'The Shards' takes it to murderous slasher-thriller heights. In many ways, it's a murder mystery, a crime thriller and a horror story," he says.
Softened over the years
Bret Easton Ellis was born in 1964 in Los Angeles. He made his debut at the age of 21 with the generational novel "Less than zero" in 1985. With the scandalous "American Psycho" he got his big break.
The story of brutal serial killer Patrick Bateman was rejected by several publishers for its violent and pornographic scenes, but quickly became a success once published.
With "The Fragments," Bret Easton Ellis has softened as a writer. The violence is no longer as brutal and the sex more honest, he says.
"It's really only now, with this advancing age when your memory starts to get cloudy and you start to forget things, that you really realize how important those years were," says Bret Easton Ellis.
In the clip, you can hear author Bret Easton Ellis talk more about the book "The Shards".