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Bret Easton Ellis Biography

(1964– ), Less than Zero, Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, The Informers



American novelist, born in Los Angeles, educated at Bennington College, Vermont. His first novel, Less than Zero (1985), was published while the author was still a student and portrayed disaffected 1980s' youth, preoccupied with drugs, casual sex, and money, against a background of affluent Los Angeles society. The book was subsequently made into a film. Similar themes recur in Rules of Attraction (1987), which deals with the psychological traumas of a group of middle-class students at a New England college. American Psycho (1991) caused widespread controversy for its portrayal of a middle-class Wall Street banker who is also a brutal killer; the novel was rejected by the author's American publisher for its excessive violence before being accepted by Picador. The Informers (1994), a collection of linked short stories, covered much the same territory. With Jay McInerney and Tama Janowitz, Ellis has popularized a new style of American writing: laconic, cynical, and concerned with the decadent values of a materialistic generation.



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Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: Dutchman to Paul Engle Biography