Lunar Park

Lunar Park

2005 • 404 pages

Ratings11

Average rating3.8

15

Darkly comic and genuinely horrific in places, this novel is Ellis's best work since his debut, Less Than Zero. Writing in the first person as a bizarre alcoholic, drug-addicted parody of himself, Ellis takes us on a dark journey into his celebrity lifestyle: married to an A-list Hollywood actress, father of a son he's estranged from, living in upstate New York

There are various plot strands ranging from Ellis's troubled relationship with his dead father, the disappearance of a number of boys from his son's school, to the activities of a serial killer who is apparently copying the killings from Ellis's earlier novel American Psycho.

The book is a fantastic read, easily the most enjoyable Ellis novel I've read. Yes his trademark cynicism is there along with the sense of fear and dislocation, but there is a new maturity to some of his writing, especially at the end, which is both moving and elegiac.

This is not a novel for a first timer to dive into. You'd be better off starting at the beginning with Less Than Zero. But for those who have read his earlier stuff, I'd recommend this.