Between 1 and 5 am on Saturday morning in Los Angeles, Bret Easton Ellis, author of the controversial 1991 bestseller American Psycho, began tweeting notes on a new sequel to his biggest novel. Ellis tweeted details for the new novel to his followers as he brainstormed for four hours, even going as far as requesting feedback on his flurry of ideas.
Bret Easton Ellis rose to fame at a very young age, publishing his first novel, Less Than Zero, while he was still in college. Ellis became a controversial author when his third novel, American Psycho, was dropped from publishing house Simon & Schuster over “aesthetic differences,” though Vintage later picked up the publishing rights. Ellis received hate mail and death threats over the book, due to its graphic, often misogynistic violence. Since then the author has stood by its literary merit as a social satire, and gone on to write four more novels.
Ellis tweeted primarily about his killer protagonist’s possible interests in media and technology today. “Patrick would talk about Adele and Kanye and KATY PERRY because ‘Firework’ is his favorite song… and then he kills Katy Perry’s trainer.”
Patrick loves Celebrity Apprentice and Chopped and the Kardashian’s. I think… Housewives of Beverly Hills?… NCIS?… What else?…
– Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) March 10, 2012
In the 1991 novel, during an episode of extreme mania, Bateman experiences an ATM talking to him; Ellis wrote about playing with an updated idea in the sequel:
Patrick’s iPad would start speaking to him… Telling him Adele’s cover of The Cure drove him to killing, well, just about everybody…
– Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) March 10, 2012
The author went on to talk about how his killer will use new tech to find victims.
Patrick would complain about spotify and the cloud and tumbler…but he would find victims via Blendr while listening to Beyonce and O.A.R.
– Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) March 10, 2012
The idea of a tech-savvy Patrick Bateman, as Ellis describes him, seems to fit extremely well despite the original satire having been written well before the widespread use of the internet. Simply answering these questions of what new technologies and pop culture icons would interest his protagonist in the modern day sparked a flurry of wonderful ideas in the writer; by the end Ellis tweeted that he had fourteen pages of notes. He wrote, “Well, if this American Psycho sequel pans out I’d get in touch with my agent first but will have to spend the weekend seeing if it works.”
In recent years Ellis has been more heavily involved in the movie industry than working on new novels. Last year Ellis coined the term “post-empire” amidst media fascination with Charlie Sheen leaving his TV show, a phrase he uses as an explanation for the deconstruction of the mega 1980s Hollywood persona. Ellis co-wrote a script for his collection of stories, The Informers, and his most recent project, titled The Canyons, is currently in pre-production.
Making new notes. Going to bed. Can’t believe this happened. Am I really going to start doing this? PB says yes…
– Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) March 10, 2012
Horror director Eli Roth responded to one of Ellis’ tweets after a mention of Hostel (along with the musical Chicago) being one of Bateman’s favorite movies. “I’m obsessing over this!” Roth wrote. “What does he do now that Netflix Instant exists? What about Whitney’s death?”
As a long time fan, with all this live excitement over another Patrick Bateman novel, I can’t stop wondering what new technology Ellis’ killer will obsess over next.
