Bret Easton Ellis
American Psycho

In 1991, the most well-known work of American writer Bret Easton Ellis to date is released, the most ruthless and quite possibly the truest portrayal of the decade that has just ended and what it spawned: "American Psycho" is a book that presents all the horror of the world, a horror hidden behind plastic masks ready to reveal itself in all its enormous ferocity as soon as these masks drop for an instant.

We are at the end of the 1980s, Patrick Bateman is a twenty-seven-year-old from New York, graduated from Harvard, works on Wall Street, vice president of a large company owned by his father, he is rich, handsome, frequents the best clubs in Manhattan along with colleagues from his same social class, he is in high-end escort circles, uses cocaine, is very attentive to his appearance and physical shape. A monument to Yuppiedom. Patrick Bateman is obsessed with his image, the focal point of his non-existence is to shine the projection of himself that he offers to the world around him, he cannot rest if his business card is less beautiful than those of other colleagues, he only wears designer clothes, and his encyclopedic knowledge in the field allows him to immediately know the brand of clothing worn by anyone he happens to meet and scan with his eyes, he is constantly worried about the state of his hair, has a girlfriend, Evelyn, not because he feels any sentiment towards her but only because his social status demands it of him. Patrick Bateman likes to live according to predetermined routines, he exercises in the mornings, watches the Patty Winters Show, returns predominantly pornographic videotapes, kills people. What is initially described by those around him as "the boy next door" is a container of fear and anxiety, a product of the society he is immersed in and which he represents, he defines himself as not a man but an indistinct entity in a reality made of non-relationships, of non-sense in anything, of boredom.

Patrick Bateman has no real friends but only entities like him with which he interacts when there is a need to book a table at the latest trendy restaurant or to get some drugs, and often in the conversations these entities mix with each other, one is confused with another, everyone knows by heart the names of the products but never remembers the names of people, nor their faces. The image becomes the only real reason to exist, the reflection instead of the body, appearance over being, a mask to show to the public, and Patrick Bateman is the personification of that mask which conceals behind itself, behind the perfect image, the darkest madness: at night, often, Patrick Bateman tortures and kills people without distinction of gender, age, or social class but above all without a real reason, he kills vagrants, call girls, ex-girlfriends, colleagues, children, animals. He does it methodically, almost always premeditatedly and consciously, he satisfies an incessant thirst for blood, and this seems to be the only outlet he has. The murders are described in minute detail to be extremely disturbing and nauseating, especially those involving women which reveal in Patrick Bateman a certain misogyny despite his social position granting him access to all the "corpoduro" of the planet. He does not just kill but engages in mutilations, lacerations, burnings, cannibalism, rats in the vagina, and more. What makes this picture even more chilling is the total absence in Patrick Bateman of any sentiment other than contempt, the complete lack of a moral guide in his actions. The only instance within the 500 pages where the ferocity of Patrick Bateman halts of its own accord is represented by his secretary, Jean, who behind a thick shield of naiveté is perhaps the only person who manages to stir something in Patrick Bateman's soul, making her seem different and not a bubble of superficiality like everything else around him.

Ellis's novel alternates moments of extreme cruelty with moments on the verge of comedy, the emptiness of the characters often renders them ridiculous, and it is unsettling how both situations are described in the same way and with the same lack of soul; the explosion of violence of Patrick Bateman is delayed so as to create the ideal setting for the reader and allow them to empathize as much as possible with the narrator's persona, at which point his actions, monstrous as they may be, can appear almost understandable, a direct consequence of what is beneath that mask, of the monsters that society has created and tries to hide behind sparkling billboards and Mulino Bianco commercials. One always walks that thin line between reality and imagination, depersonalization eventually becomes total and spares no one ("This is not an exit"). The novel neither begins nor ends, it does not have a real plot, it is just a snapshot of the daily life of Patrick Bateman told through his eyes, his obsessions and his horrors; the novel essentially speaks of nothing, it is empty, and this is precisely what makes it brilliant and terrifying. Like the two faces of the 1980s.