This is really a universal aspect of the novel and I think why the book-somewhat bewilderingly-is still around. What do you do if you feel trapped in a society that you don’t believe in, and yet you want to belong? This is what American Psycho really was about. The book was about this notion that a man has to be these certain things, and if isn't society is not really that interested in him. I think Patrick Bateman was a reflection of that. The contradictory nature we all have to a degree: we are flattered and attracted to certain things that really don’t have a kind of logic to them. Patrick Bateman was someone who I identified with a lot, especially with his anger, his rage, his alienation, his attempt to both embrace the values of the Reagan Eighties while also being appalled by them. It was certainly about a period in my life.

I felt more comfortable and that enough time had passed in speaking about the book in that way. You’re now more open about discussing the more autobiographical elements of American Psycho than you were when the book first came out. (And no, he’s not working on a new novel.) For the novel’s anniversary we spoke with Bret Easton Ellis about the book’s incredible impact on American culture, the difficulty he had writing it and its violence, and why he now wants to distance himself from it. Twenty-five years later, American Psycho still continues to shock-it is still sold with an 18+ requirement in several countries. Soon enough the book was overshadowed by reviews about its very graphic violence, which ranged from rape to murder to even cannibalism. With long diatribes about designer clothing, gym sessions, and boutique skin care, Bateman intercut his narration with passages about the likes of Whitney Houston and what the hippest restaurants in New York were-and, of course, killings. Narrated by its infamous anti-hero Patrick Bateman, the novel was a satire on the corporate greed, materialism, and vapid consumerism that fueled America in the 1980s.

Bret Easton Ellis, then 27, shocked the nation when his novel American Psycho hit bookshelves in the fall of 1991.

American psycho book cover