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Bret Easton Ellis: 'I was always suspicious of wealth'

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Hugues Honore, Agence France-Presse

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C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631"></path></g></g></g></svg></a></div><div style="padding-top:8px"><div style="color:#3897f0;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:550;line-height:18px"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CmJ_g5DO8BP/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style="background:#FFFFFF;line-height:0;padding:0 0;text-align:center;text-decoration:none;width:100%" target="_blank">View this post on Instagram</a></div></div><div style="padding:12.5% 0"> </div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:row;margin-bottom:14px;align-items:center"><div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;height:12.5px;width:12.5px;transform:translateX(0px) translateY(7px)"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;height:12.5px;transform:rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px);width:12.5px;flex-grow:0;margin-right:14px;margin-left:2px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;height:12.5px;width:12.5px;transform:translateX(9px) translateY(-18px)"> </div></div><div style="margin-left:8px"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;flex-grow:0;height:20px;width:20px"> </div><div style="width:0;height:0;border-top:2px solid transparent;border-left:6px solid #f4f4f4;border-bottom:2px solid transparent;transform:translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"> </div></div><div style="margin-left:auto"><div style="width:0px;border-top:8px solid #F4F4F4;border-right:8px solid transparent;transform:translateY(16px)"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;flex-grow:0;height:12px;width:16px;transform:translateY(-4px)"> </div><div style="width:0;height:0;border-top:8px solid #F4F4F4;border-left:8px solid transparent;transform:translateY(-4px) translateX(8px)"> </div></div></div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:column;flex-grow:1;justify-content:center;margin-bottom:24px"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;margin-bottom:6px;width:224px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;width:144px"> </div></div><div style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:17px;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:8px;overflow:hidden;padding:8px 0 7px;text-align:center;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CmJ_g5DO8BP/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:17px;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">A post shared by Bret Easton Ellis (@breteastonellis)</a></div></div></blockquote><div><script async="" src="https://www.instagram.com/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div><p>PARIS -- Bret Easton Ellis is characteristically blunt about the central theme of all his work -- in his words: &quot;the rich, and how f**ked up they are&quot;.</p><p>His latest novel, &quot;The Shards&quot;, sees him revisit Buckley, the posh high school he attended in the early 1980s.</p><p>Despite a fictionalized serial killer plotline, much is drawn from his real life, as Ellis and his comrades lounge around their pools and drive to class in sports cars. Sex and drugs punctuate their free time.</p><p>&quot;It is a privileged set of characters. I write about the rich and I always have,&quot; he told AFP during a visit to Paris.</p><p>&quot;We were much more privileged than I ever thought when I was younger. The first time we began to get some acne, boom: expensive dermatologist. In Beverly Hills none of my friends had acne,&quot; he said.</p><p>Buckley&#x27;s school alumni include famous names such as Matthew Perry from &quot;Friends&quot; and Kim Kardashian.</p><p>But Ellis&#x27;s family life disabused him of any romantic notion of wealth.</p><p>&quot;My father (property developer Robert Ellis) was a rich asshole. My pleasure in whatever status I might have had -- that was ruined by him. So I always looked at wealth in a suspicious way.&quot;</p><p>This has colored all his work, from the drugged-out alienation of his debut &quot;Less Than Zero,&quot; published when he was just 21, to the murderous fantasies of Wall Street maniac Patrick Bateman in &quot;American Psycho.&quot;</p><div><strong>&#x27;Open and vulnerable&#x27; </strong></div><p>Despite completing his first novel at 14, it took Ellis many decades to write directly about his school years as a closeted gay teen.</p><p>&quot;I could not have written this book at 18 because I was too cool. I posed. I was not open and vulnerable in my fiction in the way that I am now.&quot;</p><p>The urge came as a surprise.</p><p>&quot;Why were they coming back to me at 56, 57? Why was I thinking about my girlfriend -- my poor girlfriend -- the boys I was with, their beautiful bodies, teenage sex, adolescent passion -- why was it coming back to me now?&quot;</p><p>Ellis became obsessed with these memories during the pandemic lockdowns. He searched for signs of his old friends and haunts online, only to find they had &quot;vanished&quot;.</p><p>&quot;And then it happened... It just kind of poured out of me.</p><p>&quot;It was very fun. I love writing a novel. I wish I was writing novels all the time but I&#x27;m not, because they don&#x27;t come to me easily. I don&#x27;t feel them.&quot;</p><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CfUYVjGOg6S/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14" style="background:#FFF;border:0;border-radius:3px;box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15);margin:1px;max-width:540px;min-width:326px;padding:0;width:calc(100% - 2px)"><div style="padding:16px"><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:row;align-items:center"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;flex-grow:0;height:40px;margin-right:14px;width:40px"> </div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:column;flex-grow:1;justify-content:center"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;margin-bottom:6px;width:100px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;width:60px"> </div></div></div><div style="padding:19% 0"> </div><div style="display:block;height:50px;margin:0 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style="background-color:#F4F4F4;height:12.5px;transform:rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px);width:12.5px;flex-grow:0;margin-right:14px;margin-left:2px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;height:12.5px;width:12.5px;transform:translateX(9px) translateY(-18px)"> </div></div><div style="margin-left:8px"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:50%;flex-grow:0;height:20px;width:20px"> </div><div style="width:0;height:0;border-top:2px solid transparent;border-left:6px solid #f4f4f4;border-bottom:2px solid transparent;transform:translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"> </div></div><div style="margin-left:auto"><div style="width:0px;border-top:8px solid #F4F4F4;border-right:8px solid transparent;transform:translateY(16px)"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;flex-grow:0;height:12px;width:16px;transform:translateY(-4px)"> </div><div style="width:0;height:0;border-top:8px solid #F4F4F4;border-left:8px solid transparent;transform:translateY(-4px) translateX(8px)"> </div></div></div><div style="display:flex;flex-direction:column;flex-grow:1;justify-content:center;margin-bottom:24px"><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;margin-bottom:6px;width:224px"> </div><div style="background-color:#F4F4F4;border-radius:4px;flex-grow:0;height:14px;width:144px"> </div></div><div style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:17px;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:8px;overflow:hidden;padding:8px 0 7px;text-align:center;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CfUYVjGOg6S/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" style="color:#c9c8cd;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:17px;text-decoration:none" target="_blank">A post shared by Bret Easton Ellis (@breteastonellis)</a></div></div></blockquote><div><script async="" src="https://www.instagram.com/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script></div><p>&quot;The Shards&quot; is his seventh novel, and has been treated as something of a return to form, with rave reviews since its release in January.</p><p>He has always had detractors, upsetting right-wingers with all the sex and drugs, and left-wingers with his anti-woke politics, as detailed in 2019&#x27;s non-fiction book &quot;White.&quot;</p><p>&quot;I have my fans, people who like me, and I have a lot of people who don&#x27;t like me,&quot; he said. &quot;It&#x27;s been that way ever since &#x27;Less Than Zero.&#x27; I am a very divisive American writer.&quot;</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div>

Bret Easton Ellis' latest novel, 'The Shards,' sees him revisit Buckley, the posh high school he attended in the early 1980s.

Bret Easton Ellis: 'I was always suspicious of wealth'

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Bret Easton Ellis: 'I was always suspicious of wealth'

Hugues Honore,

Agence France-Presse

Published Mar 16, 2023 02:03 PM PHT

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