Ep 708 - American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis (w/ Too Scary, Didn't Watch!)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Overdue – Ep 708: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (w/ Too Scary, Didn't Watch!)

Release Date: June 23, 2025
Duration: Approximately 95 minutes
Hosts: Andrew and Craig
Guests: Emily and Sammy from Too Scary, Didn't Watch! podcast

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Introduction and Guest Welcome [02:16 – 04:08]

The episode begins with Andrew and Craig welcoming their guests, Emily and Sammy, from the Too Scary, Didn't Watch! podcast. They set the stage for a deep dive into Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, highlighting its controversial nature and graphic content.

Craig: “It's a depraved work of fiction and I hope so. And it involves some cussing and discussion of various depraved acts.” [02:33]

Background on American Psycho and Bret Easton Ellis [04:08 – 17:55]

Craig provides an overview of Bret Easton Ellis’s background, detailing his early life, education, and literary beginnings. He touches upon Ellis’s initial works like Less Than Zero and how they establish themes of decadence among the modern affluent youth.

Craig: “Every one of my books is an exercise in voice and character, an exploration through a male narrator who is always the same age I am at the time of the pain I'm dealing with in my life.” [16:18]

Andrew adds insights into Ellis's portrayal of Patrick Bateman and the continuity of characters across his novels, creating a quasi-cinematic universe.

Andrew: “Less Than Zero is about, you know, people coming of age. And in a very jaded, rich version of LA, it is adapted into a very, very modestly successful movie.” [15:18]

Controversies Surrounding American Psycho [17:55 – 26:30]

The discussion shifts to the book’s publication history, including its initial rejection by Simon and Schuster due to its graphic content. Craig recounts the backlash led by Tammy Bruce from the National Organization for Women, who deemed the book misogynistic and called for its boycott.

Craig: “Ellis could have gone on writing until he choked on his own vomit if Vintage had not agreed to publish this misogynistic garbage.” [26:02]

Andrew and Sammy debate whether the book serves as effective satire or simply glorifies violence, ultimately expressing discomfort and disapproval.

Andrew: “If you’re gonna make your book be that long, you gotta have, you gotta give me something.” [87:03]

In-Depth Analysis of the Book’s Content and Themes [26:30 – 75:55]

Emily openly shares her experience with the book, admitting she did not finish it due to its overwhelming and distressing content.

Emily: “I felt Sammy and I both fell asleep for the whole movie.” [02:24]

The hosts and guests dissect key scenes, such as Bateman’s morning routine, his superficial obsession with status symbols, and his increasingly gruesome violent acts. They highlight how Ellis blurs the lines between mundane details and horrific violence, creating a relentless portrayal of Bateman’s depravity.

Craig: “He is like, I don't. It was weird. This is close.” [86:11]

Sammy discusses the repetitive nature of Bateman’s actions and the lack of character development or meaningful plot progression, making the reading experience torturous.

Sammy: “This book is as, or like maybe more relevant today than in the ’90s. Like, it's just very, very upsetting.” [30:30]

Audiobook and Narrative Style [75:55 – 86:57]

Craig shares his experience with the audiobook version, noting how Pablo Schreiber’s performance helped navigate the book’s darkest moments. They discuss the effectiveness of externalizing Bateman’s character through narration.

Craig: “Having that even... having that even a minimal level of performance did a lot.” [62:27]

Comparisons to Film Adaptation and Other Literature [86:57 – 95:13]

Andrew and Craig express eagerness to discuss the film adaptation of American Psycho in their upcoming crossover with Too Scary, Didn't Watch!. They compare the book's unrelenting violence to the movie's satirical tone, suggesting that the film handles the material with more finesse.

Andrew: “The movie is a lot better on that front than the book is, partly because it is, you know, a less than two-hour experience instead of an eight-hour experience.” [22:58]

They also touch upon similarities and differences with other satirical and violent works like Fight Club, noting how American Psycho falls short in character development and thematic depth.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts [95:13 – End]

The episode wraps up with reflections on the limitations of American Psycho as a satirical work and its impact on readers. Emily and Sammy emphasize the book's ability to induce discomfort, leading them to question the power and responsibility of fiction in portraying extreme violence.

Emily: “I really did not know.” [83:28]

Andrew and Craig encourage listeners to explore other literary works that balance horror and satire more effectively, suggesting future episodes will continue to critique and analyze American Psycho through different lenses.

Craig: “It’s a deep dive into an unbearable book, but we can’t wait to discuss the movie with you guys.” [93:54]

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Notable Quotes

• Craig: “You might be planning beach trips or BBQs or three-day weekends, but your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back.” [00:09]

• Andrew: “What doesn't belong in my epic summer plans? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. Can't be friends with them.” [00:11 – 00:47]

• Emily: “This book should maybe be required reading for a subset of the population, but I think everybody else should never, ever look at it.” [29:06]

• Sammy: “I didn't know it could get this bad. I honestly, as to... Things that no horror movies can do. It kept me up for hours.” [40:26 – 40:07]

• Andrew: “If you're gonna make your book be that long, you gotta have, you gotta give me something.” [87:03]

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Key Topics Discussed

1. Bret Easton Ellis’s Literary Career: Exploration of his early works and recurring themes.
2. Controversial Content: Graphic violence and misogyny accusations.
3. Satire vs. Glorification: Debating the book’s intent and effectiveness as satire.
4. Character Analysis: Deep dive into Patrick Bateman’s persona and actions.
5. Narrative Style: The impact of the book's droning prose and lack of character development.
6. Audiobook Experience: How narration affects the perception of the book.
7. Comparative Literature: Comparing American Psycho with other satirical and violent works.
8. Cultural Impact: The book’s relevance and reception over time.
9. Future Discussions: Upcoming crossover episodes focusing on the film adaptation.

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Final Thoughts

Overdue Episode 708 provides an unflinching discussion on American Psycho, dissecting its literary merits and moral shortcomings. With candid reflections from both hosts and their guests, the episode offers a comprehensive critique that balances analytical depth with personal reactions, making it a valuable listen for students of literature and fans of intense, thought-provoking discourse.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgun podcast.

[Craig]

Hey, Andrew. Andrew. You know what doesn't belong in your epic summer plans?

[Andrew]

What doesn't belong in my epic summer plans?

[Craig]

Getting burned by your old wireless bill. Ouch. Hot. Don't do it. You might be planning beach trips or BBQs or three day weekends, but your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. And that's why you should make the switch to Mint Mobile. They've got plans starting at 15 bucks a month. They give you premium wireless service on the nation's largest 5G network. The coverage and the speed that you're used to with way less money. So all your friends, Andrew, are sweating over data overages. They're not your friends anymore. They're over there sweating about data overages and surprise charges.

[Andrew]

They're getting burned by their old wireless bills. Can't be friends with them.

[Craig]

You're gonna be chillin' Literally. And financially.

[Andrew]

Craig, you've told me that I should switch to Mint Mobile, but surprise, I switched to Mint Mobile many years ago.

[Craig]

You pull this rug out from under me every time.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I have been a Mint Mobile customer for a long time. It is like half of what we were paying on the carrier that we were on previously for service that is indistinguishable. Even better in a lot. In a lot of ways. Because I do not get burned with data overages anymore. I just. I have as much data as I want and it's super cheap to get it.

[Emily]

Mm.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

You can use your own phone with any min Mobile plan and bring your phone number, all your friends, all you. All your remaining friends.

[Andrew]

Yeah. With nobody. Nobody knew on all my group texts that I had switched because I still had really good connectivity, but my number was the same.

[Craig]

I like that. So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless [e-mail] overdue. That's mintmobile.com overdue. There's an upfront payment of $45 for three months of a five gigabyte plan required. It's equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. Please see Mint Mobile for details.

[Andrew]

Hey, Craig, we've got guests this week. Oh, Dewey, it's. Oh, man. Oh, man. I forgot. I forgot to make up the guest bedroom.

[Craig]

Oh, crap. I'll set out the towels. I. And I'll put coffee on in the.

[Andrew]

Morning and I'll ask them what they like on pizza.

[Craig]

That's a great call.

[Andrew]

Okay, thank you.

[Craig]

We'll be ready soon. While Andrew and I get ready, we'll just let you know that we have Sammy and Emily here from Too Scary didn't watch super fun horror movie Pod. And we're going to talk about the book American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. By Brett Easton Ellis. It's. It's a depraved work of fiction and I hope so. And it involves some cussing and discussion of various depraved acts.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Extremely graphic sexual and violent acts.

[Craig]

Yeah. So, yeah, warning for that. But we had a fun time. We, we had some great guests.

[Andrew]

A warning for content, but the opposite of a warning for our fun guest stars.

[Craig]

And as we'll talk about in the episode, we're gonna go guest on their pod. Too Scary didn't watch to talk about the movie American Psycho as well. You can hear that in just a few days. So this is a book podcast. So time for the book.

[Andrew]

Buckle up book.

[Craig]

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Overdue, a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

And we've got guests in the house.

[Andrew]

You went somewhere halfway between trumpet and air horn.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And I'm not sure. I'm not sure you got to either one, but.

[Craig]

No, that's fine.

[Andrew]

Some kind of fanfare.

[Craig]

But we've got guests. We've got Emily and Sammy here from Too Scary didn't watch. Welcome, friends. Hey.

[Emily]

Thank you for having us under these circumstances, you know.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you know, I was.

[Emily]

But I do think it's kind of our fault.

[Craig]

Well, I double checked the tape to be sure who's fault. We're both at fault.

[Emily]

Okay, you know what? And that feels, that feels nice.

[Andrew]

And yeah, because I was gonna, I was gonna say, like, I just, I do want to apologize up front because normally when we're working with, you know, new, new people for the first time, new peers, content creators, we do not make them read the most, like, casually and brutally misogynistic book that I've ever read as the material for the podcast. But this time, this time we did. So I guess.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. I don't remember who penned the email if it was Emily or Sammy who was like, hey, here's a list. We're talking about this collab. We're excited about this collab. We're a book podcast. You're a movie podcast. Let's do something that's both. And y' all gave us a wonderful list that included some books we've already covered that included this week's book American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis.

[Sammy]

It was me. It was me. My guy.

[Emily]

I was gonna say it, but it was him. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

[Craig]

And I don't remember if it was this. I don't remember if you and I, Andrew, even discussed. We were just like, well, there's. There's the one we haven't read, there's one that we haven't done.

[Emily]

I knew that there's no reason we didn't do it yet.

[Andrew]

I knew that there was a movie with Christian Bale in it. I knew when Christian Bale was cast as Batman in the, the 2000s Batman movies, the only thing anybody knew that he had been in was American Psycho. And I figured it would be. I figured it would be an interesting conversation, which it is going to be that. But I did not know anything else about it. And I guess that's. That's good because otherwise we would. Would not have read it in the end. I don't think so.

[Craig]

Before we get into that, you know, we'll say that this is the kind of the first part of a two episode series crossover event. Crossover. The greatest crossover event where we're gonna talk about the book American Psycho. We may make allusions to the film, but then in just a few days, you'll hear Andrew and I joining the Too Scary Didn't Watch crew to talk about the Christian Bale film, which we're very excited about. Congrats on 300 episodes to you both as well. You just did 300 episodes recently. Right?

[Sammy]

Thank you so much.

[Emily]

Barely scratching the surface, I was gonna say.

[Sammy]

You guys are way ahead of us.

[Emily]

Very impressive stuff. And, and books are. Books are longer than movies.

[Sammy]

I wanted to ask, are, are either of you guys speed readers? Because I don't know that I could do it.

[Andrew]

I am sometimes when there's a deadline, I do read fast. I don't know if that counts as speed reading.

[Craig]

We do also, do I know you guys sometimes don't all watch the film. We do all. Usually. We are not both reading every book. We, we do like to do it when we have guests in the house because it just helps, you know, be a foundation for the conversation.

[Sammy]

Yes, we. Again, we apologize.

[Craig]

No, that's okay.

[Andrew]

We're all. We're all in here together in this, in this pit.

[Craig]

I was, I was just wondering before we dive into this book specifically, like, what kind of readers are y' all like, what do you dig is. I know you know you do a horror movie podcast. Do you actually read horror stuff on the reg? What's up?

[Sammy]

Well, we have very different tastes on our podcast. I love horror movies and Emily and our other co host Henley do not like horror movies. And so I just recap horror movies for them.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Sammy]

And so I, I don't read a lot of horror actually, but I do like a kind of messed up book and I noticed that a lot of my favorites are books with kind of sociopathic female protagonists.

[Craig]

Whoa.

[Sammy]

Like I love Gone Girl. I love anything by Mona Awad or Ottessa Moshfei and love those kinds of books. It hits a lot differently with a sociopathic male protagonist.

[Craig]

It does.

[Sammy]

It really does.

[Andrew]

It's true representation is so important.

[Emily]

This is what they mean. This is what we all mean when we say that. Talking about American Psycho.

[Craig]

What about you, Emily?

[Emily]

I like to have a good time. So. And that. And so when I'm, when I'm. Whether it's something I'm reading or watching, I want the experience to be mostly pleasant. So I veer away from very difficult, uncomfortable books. I, you know, Sam and I do have some crossover. We both enjoy historical fiction occasionally. Sammy's gotten me into some like thriller type novels that I like, but I really like. I like books set in modern day. I like books. I like romance, but I like like my. One of my favorite authors is Dolly Alderton. I really like just like a true to life exploration of what it is to be alive right now. Sally Rooney.

[Craig]

Oh yeah.

[Emily]

Also I really love. I listen to all this episode about Piranesi because I personally really love Piranesi.

[Craig]

That book was great.

[Emily]

I love Susanna Clarke. But I'm looking to generally leave a book feeling better about life than when I started. This book was not that.

[Craig]

No. It seems like the goal of this book was not that, to be perfectly honest.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I do. I mean I really. What I really like about yalls format is I don't watch horror movies either. But I will absolutely read a Wikipedia summary. Like I did not, I did not see Megan the Scary Doll movie again.

[Sammy]

Yes.

[Andrew]

I'm sorry to mispronounce it, but did I read the summary of it? Yes, absolutely I did.

[Sammy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's you. You'd be surprised. There are a lot of people like that. I mean that's kind of why we started it was because I feel like Henley and Emily. Were you doing that? I know Henley was reading the Wikipedia.

[Emily]

And I, my, my partner tell me when he would see me. Like I was having like versions of what our podcast is happen in my life.

[Sammy]

Yeah. Spooky storytelling.

[Emily]

It's like ghost Stories. I mean, I like and I like a scare. I don't like just like unfathomable horror.

[Andrew]

Sure, yeah. Yeah, sure, sure.

[Emily]

And I'm gonna be. I'm gonna come clean. I don't know if now is the moment. I did not finish this book, but not because I didn't want to do my homework. I made a choice. I made a choice at a certain point that I didn't.

[Craig]

You didn't need to.

[Emily]

I didn't want to be the. I didn't want to be a person on the other side of everything that.

[Sammy]

Was yet to come.

[Emily]

I felt I had gotten what I was like. I get it. And I must protect myself.

[Craig]

Uh huh. I honestly, I can't wait to find out when that was. I don't want to know right now.

[Andrew]

I'm curious to find out when it was too. I. I feel like if you made it through the first horrible scene where he simultaneously fucks and kills somebody. Yeah, I think you pretty much got the gist of it. Like there's.

[Emily]

And that's what I said. I said, I said, you know, there's no plot here, really.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Emily]

It's just horror after horror and I think I'm good.

[Andrew]

Yeah. It intensifies and occasionally he'll like throw in like a little leavener or something that, yeah. Breaks up the, the horror in a way that is interesting. But yeah, if you made it even like a third or like halfway through, I think you, I think you. I think you got pretty much what the book is trying to get it.

[Emily]

I do think I get it.

[Andrew]

There's not an M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end of this one.

[Craig]

No, no.

[Sammy]

Well, well, well, there's a little something.

[Craig]

We'll talk about it. Also for our, for our listeners, this is gonna, we're gonna. We put the E tag on this episode both for. Will probably need to swear about this book. And this book is dealing with a lot of violent nonsense that is not for the kid in the back of your car who's. You're subjecting your podcast because you're taking them to daycare.

[Andrew]

Or maybe the adult in the front.

[Emily]

Yeah, it's maybe not for anyone. This might not be for anyone. I actually think it's for, for no one. And it's. And it's not. It's not correct. What's happening here.

[Craig]

Craig?

[Andrew]

What would you like to tell us about Mr. Mr. Brett Easton Ellis to all of us?

[Craig]

So he was born in 1964. He's from LA, of all places. He, you know, his Parents. He had parents in one. Like the initial, like, press tour on this book, he made some comments that his, like, father had been abusive or something. He later recanted those specifically by saying, like, no, I was just kind of. I was scared of admitting how much of myself was in the book. This man is very aware of himself as a public Persona, creature, I think if you read interviews with him. So he goes to a very fancy private school in Sherman Oaks. He falls in love with books. He's, you know, working at his grandfather's hotel in Nevada, reading books, reading Joan Didion, of all things. You could definitely see all the Joan Didion in this book. It makes perfect sense. He goes to Bennington College in rural Vermont and he thinks he's going to go back to LA and make movies or something. But he's writing these. You know, he's in his late teens, he's writing these snippets of what would eventually become his debut novel, Less Than Zero. And his professor's like, hey, these are pretty good, and sends them off to his editor in New York. And his editor in New York says, these are pretty good. And then I think before he even graduated Bennington, it was. He had a book deal.

[Andrew]

Yeah, this was Less Than Zero was published in 1985, which is when he was 21 years old. Yeah, that one is his. It's already dabbling in the themes that are kind of his calling card, which is like, if you wanted to pick a through line that didn't have anything to do with the violence or the drug use, it would be like, decadence of the modern rich guy.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Is kind of the thing that. That he is doing. Less Than Zero is about, you know, people coming of age. And in a very jaded, rich version of la, it is adapted into a very, very modestly successful movie. In 1987, I think it made like 12 million on a 5 or 6 million dollars budget in 1987, with Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr. Jamie Gertz and James Spader in it, among a few other people. And. Yeah, and then this. American Psycho is his third book in 1991. Craig, I know you have some stuff on the controversy. I'll let you say whatever else you want to say about Mr. Mr. Ellis, and then we can move on to the next. Well, well, there's a specific. Like a. Like a media. Media frenzy. Yes, it happens. Yes.

[Craig]

So he becomes part with Less Than Zero, becomes part of this, like, literary Brat Pack. People love to use Brat Pack for. A couple of people got famous at the Same time.

[Sammy]

Yep. There's a Splat Pack in horror movies.

[Craig]

There's a. Who's in the Splat Pack?

[Sammy]

It's Eli Roth. That's all I can remember. Maybe Rob Zombie.

[Craig]

There's always like one or two people in the pack who are bigger than everyone else, you know.

[Andrew]

Yeah, the Splat Pack does sound like an amazing expansion to the Garbage Pail Kids cinematic universe, though. Like I. I would, I would buy those little booster packs and open them up and see what kind of cards I got.

[Craig]

He and this guy, J. Mac McInerney are also in it. I saw some reference to them being called the Toxic Twins, which I just, I don't want to be anywhere near those guys. No, thank you.

[Andrew]

Well, those guys sound like they just fight the Power Rangers all the time.

[Craig]

Like what Easton Ellis said of, of one of to the Pairs review about his books. Every one of my books is an exercise in voice and character, an exploration through a male narrator who is always the same age I am at the time of the pain I'm dealing with in my life. And so you can kind of see that in the run up where Less Than Zero is about these kids in high school or whatever. And then Rules of Attraction is about slouching college kids. And then American Psycho, it's a dude in his 20s, you know, going haywire in New York.

[Andrew]

And then as he approaches middle age, he does a Less Than Zero sequel about the same characters also approaching middle age. I do not know that they have grown or matured in a way that we would recognize as growing and maturing. But yeah, he's still doing that.

[Craig]

So yeah, and there is kind of an Ellis like cinematic universe where like the characters appear in multiple books. Bateman, his brother, is one of the main characters in Rules of Attraction. One of his victims, one of his kind of his off screen victims is from a J. McInerney novel. It's just if you love any of these characters that you read in American Psycho, you can go find them in his other books.

[Emily]

I do love not to love.

[Sammy]

I do love when authors do that. But yeah, I don't know if I'll be completing this particular book.

[Emily]

That was my main thought in this book is I want to know what all these guys are up to. What's the rest of their sort of inner life and how do I find out more?

[Andrew]

I'm thinking sequel like Come on.

[Craig]

And his other novels include the Informers, Glamorama, Lunar Park, Imperial Bedrooms White and the Shards. I think Lunar park is maybe one of the ones you referenced Andrew. That is like a meta novel about his career. There might be some other stuff in Glamorama that, that plays with that. Like Bateman is in Lunar park, like, as a. As a. An embodiment of a fictional character. Whatever, man. Authors can do whatever they want.

[Andrew]

I've got a bit from a. From a 1999 review of Glamor. Actually, that. That.

[Craig]

Oh, please.

[Andrew]

It kind of. It made me less interested in his writing. Okay, this is. This is the first paragraph of this review, which ran in 1999 when the book came out. It's a mystery to me why some people are complaining that Brett Easton Ellis's latest novel is nothing more than a recycling of his controversially graphic American Psycho. American Psycho, after all, was a bloated, stultifyingly repetitive, overhyped novel about a fabulously good looking, inexpensively dressed Wall street sociopath who tortures and dismembers beautiful young women. Whereas Glamorama as any, is a bloated, stultifyingly repetitive, overhyped book about an entire gang of fabulously good looking and expensively dressed sociopaths who torture and dismember both women and men, and lots of them. Clearly, Ellis's authorial vision has grown broader and more inclusive over the past decade. Wow.

[Sammy]

Wow.

[Andrew]

But it, like, that makes me less interested in reading more Brady Sonellas, even if I had been interested in the first place, because it's like this voice that you've created for Patrick Bateman, this character in this book. It's not just like you creating a voice so that you can, like, create an atmosphere and, like, say something about, like, the human condition. This is like, just the way that.

[Emily]

You write about stuff, right?

[Sammy]

I have read Less Than Zero. Gotta say, I found it very boring. Okay, like, weird to say that I preferred this one because I don't know if that feels quite right, but it's a strong one.

[Emily]

There was a point at which you were having a good time.

[Sammy]

There was.

[Emily]

I will say there was a point at which I was having a good time. Ended much, much, much sooner than the point at which you were still having a good time, Sam. But there, it's. Oh, this book.

[Sammy]

But yes, from the two books of his I've read, I've gathered that there's not like a whole lot of creative exploration happening. It's just kind of.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like it's. It's very repetitive. Yeah, it's. And. And this, the Glamorama review calls out as. As something that he does. It's just like He. He uses the same sort of tone and cadence to talk about what people are wearing and also how you, like, rip a woman's skin off or whatever like that.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

The lack of contrast between those two things is what he does, which is fascinating.

[Emily]

Like, I. There were moments where I could, like, really appreciate what was happening and particularly, like, in this moment in time. I read a lot of reviews about American Psycho or like, articles written about American psycho in, like, 2016.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Emily]

For obvious reasons. Like, there is something really fascinating. It just goes so much harder than anything ever ought to. And in a way that's like, what are. What is this? What? And. And for who?

[Sammy]

It's unbelievable. I mean, we cover all sorts of horror movies and I feel like this is.

[Emily]

It's the worst thing that's ever.

[Sammy]

Worst thing that's ever happened.

[Emily]

Maybe this book is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

[Sammy]

We've talked about some really, really intense horror movies. And this, like, I was like, I couldn't believe.

[Andrew]

I couldn't believe what's fascinating about the movie. And I'll just. This, I'm dropping this as a tease. On the other episode. We're trying to do some cross pollination of listeners. So consider. Consider this a teaser trailer. But the movie is both, like, directed and the screenplay is written by women, which is incredible to me.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And I honestly think it, like, it does not change a lot, but I think it. To the extent that you can read this book as satire, I think it knows what to play up to make it more obvious that's what it's trying to do. And I think that makes it more interesting to me.

[Emily]

So, yeah, perhaps women are better equipped to understand violence against women.

[Andrew]

Who can say?

[Craig]

Honestly, no one in this book can say. I'll tell you what. This book was scheduled to be published by Ellis's publisher, Simon and Schuster. It was in edits, I think galleys were going around and they canceled it in 1990. He had sent the manuscript in, in January. They canceled it by November. That there are a lot of different stories, you know, floating around about why or how that happened. You know, Paramount was a parent company of Simon and Schuster. And they're like, well, and Ellis is in multiple interviews and other people are writing like, well, they put out Friday the 13th. They can't put out this book. And you're like, listen, yeah, there are quotes from the guy at Simon and Schuster who's like, listen, it's just a matter of taste. And also, he does make the argument that, like, the perspective of the novel and the privacy and intimacy of the, you know, first person perspective does make the violence worse. Like, I was surprised to see that. And this was in contemporaneous writing from the 90s and the times where the Simon and Schuster guy was like, I don't know, man. It's just like you make a movie and, like, stuff blows up over there. It's when it's in a book, it's like you're in the mind of the person doing it and it feels different. Which is also. Ellis, you know, has doubts about whether or not it could ever be made into a successful movie for that very reason. So it gets picked up over at Random House. Sunny Maida is going to bat for the book. It's going to get published by Vintage, I think eventually. The title, in case you didn't know, he saw a marquee on a movie theater for the films American Anthem and Psycho 3. And they couldn't fit the second part of each title, so it just said, american Psycho. That's my book, please.

[Andrew]

I did not know that the name came from a don't dead open inside situation.

[Craig]

And so they've picked it up and some leaks happen. I don't this. I couldn't really find how and where or why, but previews of the book make it out into the world. And the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization of Women, led by Tammy Bruce, who is now a spokesperson in the Trump administration. She called for a boycott of this novel. They set up a hotline where you could call in and she like, has like, hey, I'm Tammy Bruce and I hate this book. Listen to this terrible part of it. And she read like the whole section with the nail gun.

[Sammy]

Yeah, everything the nail gun was and.

[Craig]

Just is like, this book is terrible. Don't let it happen. And so there's this media, like, outrage against it that she says. She says, this is not art. Mr. Ellis is a confused, sick young man with a deep hatred of women who will do anything for a fast buck. And Mr. Maida is worse. Ellis could have gone on writing until he choked on his own vomit if Vintage had not agreed to publish this misogynistic garbage.

[Sammy]

Wow.

[Craig]

Ellis, for responding to the criticism, does agree that Bateman is a misogynist, but takes umbrage at the fact that people would conflate the writer with the. The character. That's. That's his. That's his take as much as he has a take. Bateman is the monster. I am not on the side of that creep. He says, you didn't put him.

[Andrew]

You are like, solely responsible for me for him existing.

[Sammy]

No.

[Andrew]

So, like, I, that's, that's the thing is like the, the two schools of thought about this book that I had found in reviews that happened at the time and also stuff that's been written like, retrospectively is. Is it misogynist and horrible or is it a satire about, you know, the, the. The Reagan era or like the detachment of modern consumer culture that we are just talking about suits and talking about killing women in the same tone of voice? I just, my personal feeling is like, if I walk up to you and I punch you in the face and I say this is satire about violence and in contemporary society, but then I punch you in the face like four more times. @ a certain point I'm just punching you in the face. Right. Like I'm not doing satire anymore. Right. And I think this book is so over the top and goes so often to the same sort of awful. Well that it's really hard not to get the sense that it's reveling in it a little bit and that. I don't know. That's what I can. I can see the argument for it as satire, but again, I think the movie is. Is a lot better on that front than the book is, partly because it is, you know, a, like a less than two hour experience instead of an eight hour experience, you know.

[Emily]

Yeah, it's a long. It's a long book. It's also. Yeah. I mean, I, I feel like I was, as I was reading and as. Once I decided I wasn't reading this book anymore, really going back and forth between the two because, like, you know, and I think ultimately I landed in. Most of life exists in the gray area. And it, you can, it can be both. Like, just because it's a satire doesn't mean it's not also gratuitous and potentially like unnecessarily putting things out into the world that it's like it. It can be doing both. And I think that it is doing both. I think that this book should maybe be required reading for a subset of the population, but I think everybody el. Should never, ever look at it, ever.

[Craig]

Who should read it? Who do you want to read it? Emily?

[Emily]

I could tell I could take some people. I want to read it as purely as punishment and suffering.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think there's been a lot of. Of like Patrick Bateman apparently, like was making the rounds on TikTok. I'm not really on there, but I read a lot about clips of that movie going around there and people kind of unironically embracing elements of his character. In another example of we misunderstood.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

The anti. Part of the word anti hero.

[Sammy]

Absolutely bone chilling. Yeah, I was thinking about that. There's. I saw a video maybe you guys saw. It was of a guy named Ashton hall who's like an quote unquote alpha male influencer. And it's his like morning routine. Waking up at like 3:45am and dipping his face in a ice bath of Saratoga spring water. It's just like so extremely Patrick Paidman that I feel like today. It just feels like this book is as. Or like maybe more relevant today than in the 90s. Like, it's. It's just very, very upsetting, which really adds to the upset of reading it.

[Emily]

Yeah, frequent mentions really add to the upsettingness of reading.

[Sammy]

Yes, a lot of mentions.

[Craig]

Loves Trump.

[Andrew]

Loves Donald Trump. Talks about him all the time, which is way too on the nose.

[Emily]

Yeah, it's an assault, this book.

[Craig]

It is. In fact, let's talk about it.

[Emily]

And on that note, let's talk about it.

[Craig]

It does open with abandon all hope ye who enter here. Right. It does invoke the urine. Hell, now you're in hell for the rest of the book.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Buckle up. Who's our boy? Patrick Bateman. What's he doing at the top of the book?

[Sammy]

The same thing he does the whole book. I don't even remember how does it.

[Emily]

It took me a minute to get into like, the cadence of it.

[Craig]

Like.

[Emily]

Like my brain was like, it like. And I did once I locked in and before any of the really, really, really horrible stuff happened, I was like, this is fascinating. Like, you can almost like you can speed read it in that. It's like the. The specifics don't matter so much as he is full of them. Like every brand that anyone's wearing, every single, like designer, blah, blah, blah. It's just like. It's just. He's just. It's. He's got it all. And it's like the specifics don't. It's all a wash. Everything is the same tone.

[Andrew]

The drone of it is. Is the. The first time you encounter this drone of like, here's everything about my suit and my tie and my VCR and my stereo and I have a lot of blood stains on my sheets. And here's what this guy is wearing. And here's like the. The first couple of times you. You hit that little speed bump of like. Wait, what? That is cool.

[Emily]

It's so cool.

[Andrew]

It's just the.

[Emily]

I was having fun then.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Is that. Is that the part of the book that y' all were enjoying or, like, where. Where did your enjoyment.

[Sammy]

I would say for, like, most of the first half, I was at least maybe not enjoying everything, but the comedy was still, like, hitting hard enough for me. I laughed every single time. He refers to Gene as his assistant who's in love with him.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Sammy]

But I also, when I first started, because I use an E reader, and it tells you how much time you have left in reading the book and just kept going up and up and up. And I was like, oh, no, it's getting longer somehow.

[Andrew]

Because it was like.

[Sammy]

Because of what you said, Emily. It was like, taking me a while to get into the rhythm of it.

[Emily]

But it was like, normally another book you would have. But I guess this was taking. This is taking up about. It's gonna take her a while to get through this.

[Andrew]

That little number makes me feel like it's useful to have it, but it also makes me feel super judged. Like I have to turn it off for the first couple chapters. Cause I don't want to know how quickly it thinks I should be reading.

[Craig]

It is. It's like when I.

[Sammy]

It's like, oh, you're not doing as well as we thought you were, actually.

[Andrew]

So too bad.

[Craig]

It's like when I think I can. I can, like, beat Google Maps. Like when Google Maps is like, it's going to take you two hours. And I'm like, but if I go.

[Sammy]

Fast, yeah, I'm gonna drive pretty fast.

[Craig]

And it's like, I've accounted for this. I know how fast you drive.

[Andrew]

It's.

[Craig]

You're. It's still gonna take two hours. The thing that struck me about the beginning of the book is it does take a few chapters to reveal Bateman to you, the reader. Right. Like, those first couple chapters, you're like, wow, this Tim Price guy sucks. This guy he's hanging out with in the cab. This guy he's going to a dinner to. Is just saying garbage all the time. You know, it's. It's this opening, like, sushi dinner at Evelyn, who is his girlfriend. Fiance, Right?

[Andrew]

Yeah, kind of.

[Craig]

There's like a wacky sushi dinner with some artist people, Goth artists there. And Tim Price is just terrible. And that goes on for a while. And then there's like, another scene a little bit later where it's him at a restaurant with a bunch of the boys, and they're all terrible, telling terrible jokes. And Bateman's Always the one who's like, come on.

[Emily]

They call him, like, the. He's like the Boy Scout or like the Golden Boy. He's. Yeah.

[Sammy]

Always asking for fashion rules. Can you wear. How do you wear a vest with a tie or whatever.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And the one guy at the table who will tell all the boys. Boys. To stop being so anti Semitic.

[Craig]

The one. The one. And, like, yeah, he's having an affair with Courtney. But, like, is he that. Is he as bad as these other guys? He does have a wonderful fitness regimen, and he loves to. He loves his VHS tapes, and he loves the Patty Winters show, which I guess is like a Geraldo.

[Sammy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Like daytime talk show.

[Craig]

Yeah. What's the Ricky Lake? I guess, you know, there's a reference to Oprah later, but he's never watching Oprah.

[Emily]

Yeah. He's only watching Patty Winters religiously.

[Craig]

And. And at some point, I don't remember when he starts, like, truly being like, also, I am gonzo for sex and porn. And. And that's before you're also like, oh, you love killing people.

[Emily]

It is before. Before. Yep.

[Sammy]

Is.

[Emily]

But those first. Yeah, like, I like that you described it as speed bumps. Like, those first little, like. Huh. But obviously, knowing the character Patrick Bateman, I. Well, look, I did not know how. I didn't know how bad he was.

[Craig]

I didn't know how bad he was either.

[Emily]

I didn't know how bad he was. He's so much worse than I thought. But so when you first get these little, like, he describes at one point, like, that he has a knife in his pocket, and he's just, like, thinking about what he could do with it, and then we just, like, pass by that.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Emily]

Those mentions are, like, such a fun little seasoning. Like, they cut through the monotony of this. Like, what. How do you wear certain clothes? And here's my skincare routine. And I went to the gym at this time, and it. So they. They feel really, like, exciting and. And like, they sort of, like, made me go as a reader, like, oh, let's follow that. Like, what's. What's that? Like, a shiny object because it stood out. And then he really. He really punishes you for feeling that way.

[Craig]

I was struck, too, that, like, the first time that you get a whiff of him actually having done violence is when he's getting his. He's, like, arguing with the dry cleaners about his sheets. And, like, I was. This was still part of the book where I was like, okay, okay. Like, you have set. I know this guy. Is An American Psycho. I saw the COVID of the book. I know that. And, and I know he's got some interesting opinions, but other than that, oh, wait, his sheets are covered in blood. And he's are like the. I was, I thought there was gonna be more restraint. I guess I was waiting for. I was reading the first third of the book being like, when is this shoe gonna drop? When is this shoe gonna drop? And then to Andrew's earlier metaphor, the shoe just doesn't stop dropping once. It drops.

[Sammy]

Just kicks you in the face for.

[Emily]

And when it drops, it drops in a way. It drops in a way. You go from like, he's got a knife in his pocket, he's thinking about. He like describes like, I wonder what color that person's blood would be. Then he's got blood on his sheets. And then it's like, oh, me, me. Emily, reading this book. I need to. I need to cease to exist because of what? Just. It's like, it's like. It's like a three to like a 10,000 jump.

[Andrew]

It's. Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]

So gnarly.

[Sammy]

Yeah. There are a few moments that I liked where he'll say like blatantly to whoever he's talking to out loud, like, oh, I would love to rip your head off and spill your blood on the table and that sort of thing. And everyone's so self absorbed and no one is actually connecting with each other so they don't even notice him saying it. And I thought those moments were kind of fun. But then, yeah, once we get into.

[Emily]

Brutal.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's, it's interesting. The like. And again, like my, my whole, my whole problem with this book is like, if everything in it happened once instead of happening, like, yeah, oh, sure, I, I would be a lot more on board with it. But when it's, you know, when he says that stuff and people don't respond or when they're all just like he. And everybody who he ever socializes with is just constantly mixing up everybody who.

[Craig]

They have ever met.

[Emily]

Nobody actually knows anyone's name.

[Andrew]

Right. Because everybod. But he does the same. Not work. Work that all the people on Wall street do as far as I'm concerned.

[Craig]

Yeah, they're all just Kramer with the crackers in his briefcase. They're all just. I don't know what they do in there.

[Emily]

Yep. Yeah.

[Craig]

No, you're totally right. It's that like. And, and when you first start the book, it's like, oh, they're. They're mistaking guys over there, like across the restaurant, or they're like, oh, is that. That. That lady? No, it's not. It's somebody else. And then it. That is one of the things that picks up steam over the book and actually does, like, wind up meaning something in a way. But of course, you've had to go through the rest of the book to get there, which is frustrating.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And to your point, Andrea, it does just like it happens forever.

[Andrew]

I really, like, deeply do not want to read any of the, like, the murder passages, like, allowed on air. But also, like, we're in this, this weird spot where however bad you're thinking that it is, you probably aren't quite getting there.

[Sammy]

I just. I didn't know it could get this bad. I honestly, as to. We host a horror movie podcast again, gotta stress here that we talk about a lot of really twisted, depraved death scenes. And I really think this was. I. There were many things in here that I didn't even. Didn't even consider ever happening, ever knowing about.

[Emily]

It really is. It's so much worse than you could ever conceive of. This is such a hard thing because it's like we're sitting there on our.

[Sammy]

Show with this book.

[Emily]

I'm with people I can talk to about it.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Emily]

It'S so hard because the point is to tell people what happens in this book. But it's like, but you don't want to know and we want to protect you.

[Andrew]

I'm going to. While everybody talks for a minute, I'm going to look through all my highlights and see if I can find something that gets the point across across without doing additional dice worth of psychic damage to any.

[Emily]

So we'll get into. We'll do the movie, as in our other teasing. We'll do the movie. And I, in this moment, have not seen the entire movie yet. I'm waiting until after talking about the book to see the movie, but I. But I'm aware of it. And I. We did try to watch it with friends, me and Sammy, last Christmas, and felt. I felt Sammy and I both fell asleep for the whole movie.

[Sammy]

We had drank a lot.

[Emily]

Yeah, it was a big Christmas.

[Sammy]

So it wasn't.

[Emily]

Movie started, I fell asleep. I woke up, movies over. So I thought that I, up until I got to where I got in this book, I was like, it's kind of fun. Like, yeah, it's a satire. People love the movie. It's funny. It's, you know, Christian Bale. How bad could it be? I got to the first really, really, really, really, really bad Thing and I was down.

[Sammy]

Bethany, the nail gun.

[Emily]

I didn't, I don't think I got to the nail gun. No, no.

[Sammy]

Are you talking about the homeless man?

[Emily]

Yes, I'm talking about the dog's kill. The homeless man and the dog which was made my soul leave my body. I, I, the entire. I came out into the living room, said to my husband, I could not stop all day. I was like, you don't understand. Patrick Bateman is so.

[Sammy]

Oh my God, Emily. Actually, I gotta say, you don't even understand because it's so much worse than that.

[Emily]

But I was like, I was like, I don't think you understand. Like, like he's so bad. Like, I had no idea Patrick Bateman was so bad.

[Craig]

Does he even kill Al in that scene or does he just blind him because isn't he there?

[Andrew]

No, I'm pretty sure that he is like, it is strongly implied that it's the same guy that he runs into toward the, toward the end who is blind and has got a sign saying that he was blinded in Vietnam. And then Patrick Bateman bends over.

[Sammy]

Oh, I was under the impression he's killing multiple homeless people.

[Andrew]

I did not.

[Craig]

Well, that is also the impression. It could be that both the mighty, mighty boss tones, that is the impression that I got as well.

[Emily]

And like so many apes to kill so many animals. And like.

[Andrew]

You don't even love.

[Sammy]

I personally loved when he killed the.

[Andrew]

Five year old boy at the zoo and then was like, oh, this doesn't make me feel anything.

[Sammy]

No, that was when I texted Henley, our other co host with kids who really struggles with anything child related. And she hadn't said if she had stopped or not yet. And I was like, Henley, you have to stop. Wherever you are, you have to stop.

[Andrew]

I can't. Like my. I have always had the hardest time when it's, I don't have like a blanket ban on like bad stuff happening to kids in popular media, but when the kid is like my kids age, I have the hardest time with it. So there was some like HBO did that re, that gritty reboot of Barry Mason a few years ago, which actually was better than it had any right to be. And it opens with like a dead baby on a subway. And that was right when Henry was.

[Emily]

You know, so that's really.

[Andrew]

So yeah, it's, it's that kind of stuff. And, and this, this hit me, you know, five year old boy at the zoo, which is like number one on our list of like, we don't have school today. We don't have camp today. We got to get out of the house.

[Sammy]

Right.

[Andrew]

Number one on the list of things to do. It's like, oh, good, good. I'm glad. I'm glad that not only Patrick Bateman, did you do this. But then you're like, man, it's much better to kill people when they've got, like, a history and, like, a place in the world and something to lose. This isn't doing.

[Craig]

He says that also. He is like, I don't. It was weird. This is towards the end of the book. But he's like, it felt weird to. To kill someone who hadn't done anything wrong or, like, hadn't lived. Like, he's even like, what is this? I don't need to be in this man's head. He's, like, unsatisfied.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Craig]

With this murder.

[Emily]

Well, and some of the. What he thinks of someone has been done wrong is, you know, incredibly racist or, you know, so his. It's. It's not. If you thought it was just that he kills people and animals in horrifying ways. No, no, no. There's a lot. There's a lot more to him that's deeply, horribly bad.

[Andrew]

Yeah. If you read that one first little interjection where he's like, stop being so racist. You do not know the number of N words. F slurs. R slurs that you're going to run into a lot of them on the same pages. Like, yep, it's a lot.

[Emily]

I made it about halfway through the book and I. I stopped.

[Craig]

Did you make it through the U2 scene?

[Emily]

I made it. I got through the U2 scene. Thank God. My favorite scene. Yeah. I made it to the U2 concert, and it was a blast. I made it through the most memorable scene where I was like. And I do believe that I am done was the scene with the sex workers, immediately followed by a full chapter talking about the band Genesis, which, don't get me wrong, is funny. I get it. It's funny in a. Like, isn't that funny? Clever kind of. In reading it, I was like, I will never let you do this to me again. Like, I was like, I can't. This is.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah. So, like, I know Andrew's still maybe hunting.

[Andrew]

I am okay. Trust me.

[Craig]

I want to kind of.

[Andrew]

It's a tough needle to try to do.

[Craig]

This is not a very plotty book book. And we've made reference to that a couple of times. Like, want to try to give us, like, a 10,000 foot view of what happens over the course of the Book because it is a tough one. And remember like eight to nine years ago when I read that awful book, the Girl Next Door, and I was.

[Andrew]

Always up and like every time anybody asks us the book, what's the worst.

[Craig]

We hate for the show?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I almost like vomited reading it. Like it was that like it. This is close. Like, this is close. But so there's. Let's. Let's talk about the stuff that's not that in this book, right? We, we yada yada over the. The hilarious business card scene where all these men so good fawning.

[Sammy]

That's the only scene I had remembered from the movie. Well, the main scene I remember. It's been like a long time since I've seen the movie, but incredible.

[Craig]

Pretty funny.

[Sammy]

It's a great point.

[Craig]

Like they're just like. So that's the introduction of this guy, Paul Owen. Paul Owens. Owens. I don't remember.

[Andrew]

Owen.

[Craig]

Owen, who is like another guy at the firm who's got this like Fisher account. That is the closest thing to a MacGuffin in the book of just like. He wants to know why Paul Owen has the Fisher account. He's jealous of it. And Paul Owen drops this like sick as hell business card on them. It's embossed. It's, you know, cooler than any business card you've ever seen. And it, it's similar to the movie. It is just silly to watch them all fawn over it. And that I think is what Ellis is when he thinks he's doing satire. That's what's working right for me anyway. Because he's like, this is the culture. These men are self absorbed in a particular way that has not been, you know, that, that is not. Has been common before this era. There's like a particular 80s guy kind of birth of the metrosexual type trope thing. Men, as Ellis put it in one interview. Because he was, he was like, this is what people in the gay. This is what men in the gay community were doing, like in terms of caring about their appearance and going to the gym. And then all of a sudden I was in New York and all these straight guys were doing the exact same thing thing, right? And so he's try. I think he's like, thinks he's lampooning these guys. Okay, fine. That's. Whatever. And while this is happening, of course we're falling down the rabbit hole with Patrick Baitman. He likes to call. He likes to hire call girls to his apartment and have sex with them and then maim them sometimes. He kills them. Sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes they just leave with wounds. Some of. Sometimes those wounds are described, sometimes they are not. There is that concert where he goes to you, too, and he's on drugs. And the devil speaks to him through Bono. Through Bono, which made a lot of sense to me. There's a lot of Les Mis in this book, Everyone. Which does place it at least at 1987, because that's when Les Mis premiered on Broadway. Broadway. So, okay, I think, you know, I don't know how long that initial production ran, but. And it. It builds to. In as much as there's plot, the. The Paul Owen murder where he's out with Owen. This has happened, like, after a couple other scenes, like the Evelyn Christmas party, I think, where he's. He's obsessed with. With Paul and he's like, pretending to be this other guy who Paul thinks he is.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right.

[Craig]

And then he goes out with Paul to lunch or dinner and gets him drunk and invites him back to his place and kills him with an axe and then takes over his apartment and then uses that apartment to kill people in. It's pretty fun, I guess.

[Andrew]

I guess so.

[Craig]

I have. Okay, go ahead, Andrew. What'd you find?

[Andrew]

It's so. I have. I have an example of what this book does a lot, which is really graphic sex scene into really graphic murder scene.

[Craig]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew]

With a transition that almost isn't a transition because.

[Craig]

Oh, I think I know exactly what page you're on. Yeah.

[Andrew]

So far into. Maybe you do, maybe I don't, because I'm. Maybe I'm explaining. I'm describing something that happens a lot of times. So I'm gonna say a lot of words that are bad, words that even I don't. That I don't want to say. Soon it's Christie's turn, and Elizabeth eagerly straps on the dildo and fucks Christie's cunt with it while I spread Elizabeth's asshole and tongue it. And soon she pushes me away and starts fingering herself desperately. Then Christie puts the dildo on again and she fucks Elizabeth in the ass with it while Elizabeth fingers her clit, bucking her ass up against the dildo, grunting until she has another orgasm. After pulling the dildo from her ass, I make Elizabeth suck on it before she straps it on again. And while Christie lies on her back, Elizabeth pushes it easily into her cunning hunt. During this, I lick Christie's tits and suck hard on each nipple until both of them are red and stiff. I keep fingering them to make sure they Stay that way. During this, Christie has kept on a pair of thigh high suede boots from Henry Bendell that I've made for wear. Elizabeth naked, running from the bedroom, blood already on her, is moving with difficulty and she screams out something garbled. My orgasm had been prolonged and its release was intense and my knees are weak. I'm naked too, shouting you, you piece of trash. At her. And since most of the blood is coming from her feet, she slips, manages to get up, and I strike out at her with the already wet butcher knife that I'm gripping in my right hand, clumsily slashing her neck from behind, severing something, some veins. When I strike out a second time while she's trying to escape, heading for the door, blood shoots even into the living room across the apartment, splattering against the tempered glass and laminated oak panels in the kitchen. She tries to run forward, but I've cut her jugular and it's spraying everywhere, blinding both of us momentarily. I'm leaping at her in a final attempt to finish her off. She turns to face me, her features twisted in anguish and her legs give out. After I punch her in the stomach and she. She hits the floor and I slide in next to her. After I've stabbed her five or six times, the blood spurting out in jets. I'm leaning over to inhale its perfume. Her muscles stiffen, become rigid, and she goes into her death throes. Her throat becomes flooded with dark red blood and she thrusts around as if tied up, but she isn't. And I have to hold her down. And I'm not going to keep going.

[Craig]

Because you really kept going, huh?

[Andrew]

Listen, that's how it is after that, after that, that stuff happens. There's like usually like a mutilating the corpse and, or having sex with it again phase.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Sammy]

I was going to say out of the kill. So that's kind of the first big one, right?

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sammy]

Again, to reiterate.

[Andrew]

Yeah. This is like two thirds of the world.

[Sammy]

So much worse than that. It becomes like full torture. And, and like, like things that Bret Easton Ellis had to, had to come up with. Things that, that nobody has done before.

[Andrew]

This one ends with him connecting jumper cables to her breasts.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And like zapping her and talking about how her, like the fat and her breasts exploded when he did that. Like that. That is how it gets really, really unsettling and nasty and it does it.

[Emily]

Over and over and over again and. Yeah, and I think that, like, that's where it's tough. That's where it's tough to separate. It's, you know, it. Brett Eastonelles being like, I'm not Patrick Bateman. And it's like, there was no Patrick Bateman until you fucking did this. Like, you did this to us. And I, and I understand that the point to a certain extent is like, we are a depraved culture. And like, yeah, and the, and like, I, again, I like going back, like, the sex scenes are so graphic and, and, and purely sexual until they're immediately purely violent. And it's like that, like, I can understand him being like, oh, you like this, don't you? You're. You're horny. I'm making you horny. You like this. And now, like, see, this is what you actually like. Like, I, I get it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I do get it.

[Sammy]

It.

[Emily]

You have to stop doing it.

[Andrew]

Well, the tone of the, the book, like, every, like we mentioned earlier, just the drone of it is, is the way I would, would describe it. It's just like, think of the least sexy, like, most clinical detail that I could describe a sex scene in, and then it segues into a murder scene with the same amount of detail in it.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, he, he, I mean, that, that is his in like, that craft is, is intentional. Right. Like, he is. And he has said as much. Like, he wanted to explore what he thought was like, this kind of surface level, like, the, the society that these men are in that we are all in, is incredibly shallow. We would describe all of our material possessions with the same detail and flatness as we would. Would sex as we would murder. He, he thinks that all falls out of the guy's brain the same way. Yeah, I agree that that does not mean I need him to put me through this endurance test. I don't need that. I think, like, what's, what's tough is I, I kind of. I, I, I'm struggling to steer our conversate conversation to, like, oh, and then there's like, Evelyn and all the nasty stuff he does to Evelyn that is not murderous. That is like, really deeply, like, ushering her out of her own Christmas party and, like, taking her under an assumed name to a club where he gives her someone else's pearl necklace and then gets in a fight with someone about doing cocaine in a bathroom and then tells her to go away. And then he leaves. Leaves. Like, there is really Evelyn, the one.

[Andrew]

He serves a urinal cake?

[Craig]

Well, of course, yes, Andrew, he does. I forgot that he does put a urinal cake in, like, Dove chocolate and sends it to a restaurant. Ahead of time so that it can be served to her and she has to eat it and go. So minty. Like, it's pretty. You're right. He does do bad things to Evelyn. He doesn't cut her arms off, though. He doesn't eat her teeth or whatever.

[Andrew]

There's that other woman, Janine, I think.

[Craig]

Oh, Jean. Do you mean Gene or Jeanette?

[Andrew]

Jeanette is. Is who. I mean.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Who he makes get an abortion and then sends a cab to her house with, like, a rattle and a. Like, in the back seat of it.

[Sammy]

Yeah, it's just really, like, delivers like, baby gifts to her after she's sent home crying after an abortion. I forgot that, too. I've blocked all these things out already.

[Craig]

I know, I know.

[Andrew]

And I. I would like to. To hear y' all talk about the. The. What you would describe as a twist at the end. Yeah, but, like, I think the problem with. Because I think, like, Patrick Bateman does deteriorate some over the course of the book, but I think the main issue. I don't know. It's so hard to say the main issue. One of my issues with this book is that you're as. As the reader. Your reward for wading deeper into this book is not, like, some kind of character arc or some kind of change or some, like. I don't even necessarily need to be come up and sir or. Or whatever. It's just. There is no arc to speak of with Bateman. He just keeps doing the same kind of stuff over and over and not getting caught. And I know, like, part of the point is that he doesn't get caught and that he admits to his crimes in front of people, and they're just like, oh, you kidder, you big joker.

[Sammy]

I love your sense of humor.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you're so funny. But there's. I just. I did not find anything else about his character, anything. Like, you get that little chapter at the end where he talks at great length about Huey Lewis and the news of all. Like, that's a little oasis at the end of the book where it's like, man, this is. This is a nice change of pace. Nobody's killing anybody.

[Craig]

Yeah. So, Emily, the Genesis chapter does happen three times. There's a Genesis chapter.

[Sammy]

Whitney Houston.

[Craig]

There's a Whitney Houston. There's a huge. It. Well, and they. As. Andrew, what did you say? They read as all music essays. Like, they read as, like, forum posts on allmusic.com. like, they. They are just career rundowns with his little bloggy opinions, like, from a.

[Andrew]

From a fan's perspective from a fan's perspective from somebody does not think that Huey Lewis in the News has put out a bad album.

[Craig]

I. I was listening to Huey Lewis in the News.

[Andrew]

This I did listen to. I did listen to Sports as.

[Craig]

As sort of research as Patrick recommended. Yes. And there's something about that music that just slides over my brain. I can't call it good or bad. I just. I don't know what it is about Huey's voice. It might not even be his voice. It might be the way it's all mixed. It just sounds. It sounds like a loud, colorful 80s tie to me. Like, that's what I'm hearing.

[Andrew]

I just think there are some bands that are so of their time that even though they were cool and zeitgeisty at the moment, they cannot help but be read as, like, really painfully dorky by people even, like, one decade afterward.

[Sammy]

Right.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I don't know. Did you like the music essays, Sam? Me? You said you skimmed the Hugh Lewis one.

[Sammy]

Yes, I. I was like, I need this book to be over. Like, I can't. But I like the way that you thought of it as a nice, like, balm, a little break. But I was just like, nope, it's going to slow me down to get.

[Craig]

They do recur at, like, after something incredibly depraved or some sort. There is some sort of, like, psychic break to them in. It's. My initial thought was that it was like, all the whale chap, like, the, like, business of whaling chapters and Moby Dick, but that was giving the novel too much credit. So I don't think that that's actually true anymore.

[Andrew]

Those whalers never did anything as bad to Moby Dick as Patrick Bateman does to win.

[Emily]

Nobody ever done anything as bad to anyone, ever.

[Craig]

Nobody sent a rat inside of a whale, man.

[Sammy]

I don't want to think I was gonna bring that one up because that is one that Terrifier three ripped off. So Terrifier three, I feel like, is in the ballpark of, like, a movie of, like, trying to come up with the most depraved, disgusting kills just for this. Like, there's no interesting plot, no interesting characters, and it's just like, what are the most disgusting ways we can kill people? And. And they just lifted one from American Psycho. They do the rat tube kill in.

[Craig]

Into a person. Come ease through the person.

[Emily]

Yeah, I remember that.

[Sammy]

Yeah. Yes, though, in this one, it's into a vagina. And in Terrifier three, it's into a mouth. So.

[Andrew]

The dignity of so still ready?

[Sammy]

Cinelis takes things to win.

[Andrew]

I was just thinking about that thing in Game of Thrones where they, like, put a bucket with a rat in it up against your stomach, and then they heat the bucket up so the rat gets really desperate.

[Sammy]

Yeah. I guess people have done rat stuff, so maybe it's not if.

[Andrew]

No, I'm. I was thinking, oh, that's. That was. That was tame, that. The rat thing that they did on the famously gory show Game of Thrones.

[Craig]

So stylistically, we've talked about how terribly it is. Is how terrible it is to read this book at times. We've talked about the kind of droney POV character. I listened to the audiobook by Pablo Schreiber.

[Sammy]

Okay.

[Craig]

Porn stache, AKA Master Chief.

[Sammy]

Oh.

[Craig]

And he did fine, actually. Okay, fine. I was trapped in my car with him for hours on end.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And what I will say, preview of the. Of our movie discussion, it does help to have it externalized from your own head.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Having that even.

[Emily]

It makes it more of a character.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Having even a minimal level of performance. Did a lot. One for degree of getting. Yeah. For getting me through some of the worst parts. Because then it was like, if it was really bad, then I could just be like. Like, I'm not listening to you, Pablo. I'm just gonna kind of tune you out for a little while.

[Emily]

I just let you get through this. I'll wait till you're done doing your thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you're doing a thing. Yeah.

[Craig]

And then it was like he was just telling me about how much he loved Whitney Houston, which was kind of fun.

[Emily]

No, that actually does make sense. For a second. I was like, audiobook would be really hard. But there was something like. Like, I felt like. Like in reading it, you're. You're like, I'm do. I'm doing this to myself. I am torturing myself.

[Sammy]

Well. And I also read in bed, right before bed.

[Emily]

Same.

[Sammy]

I could send.

[Craig]

Excellent.

[Sammy]

And there was a night that I finished on the Bethany scene, which involves nail gun and cutting out a tongue and more stuff like that. And I like, I never lose sleep. I'm a really good sleeper. And I could not sleep. I was like, this. This book did what no horror movies can do. It kept me up for, like, hours. I was like, so upset that I.

[Emily]

I read in bed as well. And I stopped after the first murder scene at the homeless man and his dog. And I truly. I was like. I closed my eyes and I started like. Like, I couldn't not think about it. Like, As I closed my eyes, I was like, this has. This has to stop. This man. Brad Easton Ellis has to stop.

[Andrew]

He has to stop.

[Sammy]

Someone has to stop him.

[Emily]

Someone needs to stop him.

[Craig]

So I want to.

[Andrew]

It was an interesting experience to have watched the movie.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

Before the book. Because now my memory of the movie is like, what a light hearted romp.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Andrew]

What a wonderful time I had watching that movie.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

I can't wait to talk about it because it was a Will Ferrell comedy by comparison.

[Sammy]

I did want to ask Emily one thing. Did you get to any Tom Cruise content?

[Emily]

I did. I. I did. I love Tom Cruise. And I will say that was the one moment I have it. I have it dog eared in my book because I got so excited when it happened. Yeah. When he's talking to him about cocktail in the elevator and I keep calling Tom Cruise.

[Sammy]

I love your movie, Bartender.

[Andrew]

Tom Cruise is the one character in this book who reacts to Patrick Bateman the way that he deserves to be.

[Emily]

Reacted to, which is just thrilled to see that because I will tell you, when Tom got mentioned, I was like, oh, no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. And then it was, you must protect Tom. We must protect Tom. I mean, he's never done anything wrong in his life. No, I was. I did. I got there. Thank God. I got there.

[Sammy]

Great.

[Craig]

Yeah, I want to.

[Emily]

That was. It wasn't. It wasn't enough to help.

[Andrew]

No, no, just one. One little Tom Cruise cameo in this long book about murdering people. People by like shoving things up their holes, like. No, thank you.

[Craig]

So, Emily, did you get to the. You didn't get to the detective chapter or did you? You.

[Sammy]

No, I think that's much later.

[Craig]

Okay. Sam, do you want to, like, give us a little sense of what is going on with the detective and like, how that, I guess, kind of kicks off the latter.

[Sammy]

Yes.

[Craig]

Part of the book.

[Sammy]

So it's about Paul Owen, right?

[Craig]

Yes.

[Sammy]

He's. He's gone missing. And I think his girlfriend has reported him. Someone's reported him missing because he owes them money. And so it's actually like a. Like a private investigator. It's not like a police detective. And Patrick has pulled a few strings to make it seem like Paul is in London. I can't remember.

[Emily]

Oh, he's.

[Sammy]

He changes his voicemail to say that he's in London. Totally believable with his own voice. And he's like, our voices sound the same. Like it's fine. Which, I mean, they all do seem pretty interchangeable.

[Andrew]

Everybody gets mixed up with Everybody.

[Sammy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

You just re. Record the same, like, novelty answering machine message that he had before.

[Sammy]

Oh, that's another thing that Patrick does a lot. He loves answering his phone as if it's an answering machine whenever.

[Craig]

Oh, my God, what a goo.

[Andrew]

It's a good bit.

[Sammy]

He and Evelyn never falls for it. She knows him too well. But. So his private investigator comes to his work. It's led in by Gene, his secretary that's in love with him. And I feel like this is. We start seeing him getting uncharacteristically nervous. And he keeps. So the private investigators being pretty. Jill just saying, like, can you tell me what you know about Paul Owen? And he just keeps saying. And this did really make me laugh, like, says it, like, four times. Well, he ate a balanced diet, and he just can't. He can't be normal. And he's, like, absolutely blowing it. But I feel like somewhere around this time, there's also elements introduced of, like, have these murders really been happening?

[Craig]

Correct.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

There's also a thing a little earlier. There's like, the subplot with. I think it's Courtney's husband or eventual husband, Lewis Carruthers, who has a thing for Patrick. And Patrick seems to be in denial of it. It's unclear what, if anything, took place between them. And there's that scene where Lewis. He comes up behind Lewis in a bathroom and, like, starts to strangle him and is, like, expecting him to be coughing and gurgling. And instead, Lewis turns around and is, like, kissing him on the hand and being like, oh, you want to do this right now? And, like, that is another early indicator of, like, is Patrick actually doing the thing? Like, is his body even doing the things that he's saying it's doing right in this moment? Did that man, like, brush him off, or is he just, like, fantasizing about all of this violence?

[Andrew]

That's. That's also something that's brought up sometimes as, like, a defense of the book is that Ellis himself is. Is gay or bi. But for. For a long time, he did not want to, like, directly answer questions about that, like, definitively, partly because he thought that it would sort of influence how people were reading and encountering his books and characters, and he didn't want that to happen. But Mary Heron, who is the director of the movie and one of the two screenwriters, describes the book as, quote, a gay man's satire on masculinity.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And to. I. I do. I'm not going to say that it redeems the book in any way, because it literally does not. But. But if you encounter it that way, then, like, at least the really heightened, like, homophobia, the way he responds to Louis, the.

[Craig]

I don't know, saying that Paul Owen is in the Yale Club or the Yale thing, which is definitely a. A homophobic slur that I think Patrick Bateman has made up. Like, it's not. Okay, whatever.

[Andrew]

But if you read it as, like, some kind of closeted gay man having a mental break about something, like, I don't know, like, maybe that's an interesting perspective, but I still don't think it. I do not think it counters, like, the lovingly described scenes of, like, dismembering.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Sex workers, honestly.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But then. So that builds to, like. That kicks off the next level of heinous murder garbage as his mind is breaking down and whether or not the stuff is working for him as much anymore, he's starting to eat people and lighting their eyeballs on fire and whatever. And then he just, like, takes a gun and shoots a man in the street and kicks off this, like, police car chase. He kicks. He shoots, like, a busker in the street, and it kicks off this police car chase that then moves into third person where, like, he and Patrick are being used as opposed to first person.

[Andrew]

Yeah. The only stretch of the book that this happens, it's.

[Craig]

Yeah. And. And. Okay. And, like, it. It involves him shooting a bunch of cops, and then a car explodes. And then he is in his office building, maybe, and he calls his lawyer and confesses all of his crimes. And then the next chapter is Huey Lewis. And then there's like, some weird denouement stuff where there's, like, a lot of short scenes that don't have violence in them. Like when he visits his mom briefly. And then there's also still heinous violence.

[Andrew]

But then he says that he has, like, three vaginas in his locker just at the gym.

[Craig]

Yeah, he does. Yeah.

[Sammy]

And one of them is his favorite, too. He said he refers to one of them as his favorite.

[Andrew]

You mean, you know.

[Craig]

He has. He has that meal with Gene where he is, like, intermittently kind of clocking out and just waxing about the end of history and his own, like, takes on the universe, but also, like, having.

[Andrew]

Something that almost is, like, a feeling or a revelation or something in response to Gene just being, like.

[Craig]

Like a pure person.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. And then he encounters his lawyer who does not refer to him as Patrick Bateman. Calls him a different name, says, that was such a funny message you left Me, Patrick Bateman would never do all those things. That's so silly. And that. And then he says, I saw Paul Owen. I had lunch with him in London. Okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, there's, there's that and there's the, the scene where he goes over to Paul Owen's apartment where he. Oh yeah, a couple of the corpses and it's all cleaned up and somebody is like showing it and he asks, didn't Paul Owen live here? And the realtor lady is just like, asks him to, to leave in a way that implies that she knows something or did nothing happen?

[Sammy]

Yeah, I'm like, right, Yeah. I mean, I feel like whenever this sort of thing happens, I tend to lean into. I guess none of it happened because why would they be hidden?

[Craig]

Why would you ask the question?

[Sammy]

Yeah, yeah. But it doesn't matter.

[Craig]

No, you're right.

[Emily]

I feel like too, if we've seen set up from the beginning that nobody actually knows who anyone is, then it's like maybe the lawyer. Maybe it did really happen and the lawyer had lunch with some other guy that he thought was Paulo in it. Some other, you know, it's like. And maybe this apartment is actually. It does sort of cloud everything in this. Like nobody actually is paying attention to.

[Sammy]

Everybody's interchangeable. So how do you know anybody?

[Craig]

Yeah, because there's no, there's like, aside from the detective, the only, like. And I guess probably the made up cop chase. The. The only other moment where someone is like, oh, there are bad things happening is when like at the end when that cab driver pulls a gun on him and the cab driver's like, hey, I. You. You're the guy who killed so and so. And he like demands his Rolex and a bunch of stuff and that's like the only indication is like your face is on a poster somewhere. And again, is that real? Is that happening? Is that just Bateman feeling guilty? It's probably that. I don't know.

[Andrew]

I mean, there's. There's probably something in like the one person who recognizes him as a murderer is like a cabbie. Like a working class person, an immigrant.

[Craig]

An immigrant cabbie. Yeah.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And then also like the one murder that anybody is investigating is the one time that he kills a man.

[Craig]

That's also true, right? Well, no, he does. I think he kills another man, but kills a stranger. Great Cis white Wall street man.

[Emily]

Person with money.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, and then the final.

[Andrew]

Again, as with all things in this book, I don't know if that, if that observation leads to a point Anywhere but, like, it is. It's the thing that you could call out if you want.

[Craig]

Yeah. It's like you, like, kind of like you shake the book, and then, like, a point might, like a stray point, like, fires off in a distance, like, oh, that maybe that meant something. I don't know.

[Sammy]

Yep.

[Craig]

And then it ends with him, like, sitting around with the boys again, and nobody's really talking to each other. It's all kind of a mishmash. And there's like, an analog to the Dante's Inferno line where he sees a. This is not an exit sign. And I guess he's stuck there. Maybe if he ever was there at all.

[Sammy]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Who can say?

[Sammy]

Doomed to be Patrick Bateman forever.

[Craig]

Yeah. He doesn't. Yeah. Does anything we said, Emily, make you wish you had kept reading?

[Emily]

Absolutely not.

[Sammy]

No.

[Emily]

Absolutely not.

[Andrew]

Oh, you made her. You made the right choice.

[Emily]

I. I couldn't. Go on. I couldn't. I. Yeah, I couldn't. I just. It was. You know what? It was a powerful moment for me where I realized that I had that, like, I'm. I'm allowed to make that choice for myself.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Emily]

I had to do it. And, yeah, this was. I didn't know it could be so bad.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Emily]

I really didn't know.

[Andrew]

I really. I really do think if we're looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, I really do think this will make our conversation about the movie, like, a lot more fun and interesting, having encountered the story and the character. Character in this form.

[Craig]

Yeah. I was, like, two thirds of the way through the book when we watched the movie, and I was like, this is fun. This is cool.

[Emily]

I'm very eager to. To experience a woman's take on this character, this satire, this, all of. Certainly reading it in 2016. 2020. 2025. It's. You know, I. I don't have an end to that sentence.

[Sammy]

He started shutting down.

[Emily]

I really started instinctively.

[Sammy]

Just started shutting off the brain.

[Andrew]

It. In. In various ways. And I've encountered this in. In other books, too. Like, it kind of sucks to read this, like, slightly older book about a thing that's being said. Sort of held up as a satire, and it's about, like, the ills of society. Like, the most charitable read of this book is it's a satire. It's about the ills of society and the shallowness of our culture. And just so often things have done nothing but get worse from there. And like, now these people are, like.

[Emily]

Running the world instead of Patrick Bateman's idol. Is the president.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Emily]

It's Patrick Bateman's idol is the president.

[Andrew]

Instead of just being, like, weird little Manhattan perverts and just, like, keeping to themselves, like, now they all think that they need to be senators or whatever. And it's like, it sucks to have that be the best back.

[Sammy]

Oh, it's a real bummer. Yeah, real.

[Emily]

Just bad on top of that.

[Sammy]

Bad, bad, bad.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Craig]

Well, and that's. That's an interesting, like, going back to people not even wanting the book to exist. It's like. I don't know. I. I've been thinking a lot over the years of, like, okay, what is the power of a work of fiction? What do we want it to do? What. What is a fair thing to expect it to do?

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Especially when the authors are often not expecting people to do that. You know, like, it was interesting last week, Andrew, when we. When we were talking about Stone Butch Blues, and, like, the. The degree to which that novel is also, like, has a political goal of advancing, you know, causes for the trans and queer communities and, like, giving people access to the lived experience, like, there. And that came out of an organizer mindset of, like, it would be beneficial if people read this and understood this.

[Andrew]

Yeah, right. It's interesting to see that the, like, the. The story, like, everything from the. The story of the book down to, like, how the book is currently being.

[Craig]

Distributed, all sort of reflect rights free and.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

Whereas, like, this is a book where he was, like, I was feeling isolated and alienated, feeling a little like somebody named Patrick Bateman, and I just decided to start writing it down. And then it became kind of high concept. In Serial Killer, like, he claims that he didn't set out to write a serial killer novel. He set out to write this. Like, here's how it felt moving in New York at this age in this time novel. I can see that. But he also said he told Mark Marin, of all people, that he. He doesn't know. He doesn't know if Patrick Bateman did those things. He just wrote it all down. Ellis did. He just says that those are just the things that the character said. I don't know if they're true. Which is, you know, that's a thing you can say about the work of fiction you created, you know, Free country and whatnot.

[Andrew]

That keep. That keeps people buying it and reading it. If you're gonna get on Marc Maron and be like, well, this is what it's about. If you're gonna give him the Cliff Notes.

[Sammy]

Notes, that doesn't.

[Andrew]

That doesn't move paper. You know what I mean? That's what, that's what people talk about when they talk about selling books, right? They're moving paper. That's industry speak.

[Craig]

But I guess the reason I brought up so much blues to like, counter to this is just like, this is a guy who sat down to just like, write what was in his head. He was not like, he seems, yes, he seems aware of how things land with an audience, but he seems pretty comfortable with the fact that he was writing something that was just like, like, I don't know, man. Here's what I, what, what fell out of my brain and then a bunch of people heard about it, were like, please don't.

[Andrew]

Just like, these things couldn't be in my head. These things couldn't be in my head. One of the, one of the positive reviews that came out of the book at the time is from the LA Times, written by this guy Henry Bean, who says the miracle of Brett Easton Ellis is that without a plot, without much in the way of characters, and with a throwaway non style that renders the luxurious, the erotic and the grotesque in the same uninflected drone, a prose that is pure exchange value, he nevertheless makes it vi impossible to stop reading. He's able to do this in part because he knows so well what we want. The book satisfies those desires and fantasy at least, and keeps satisfying them until our cup runneth over and we're sickened by what we want and we go on wanting it anyway. I'm like, speak for yourself.

[Emily]

Yeah. I thought it was very easy to stop reading.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Emily]

And I didn't want any of it. My cup, my cup was bone dry. I, I.

[Craig]

I think you might have said it earlier, Emily, though it does sound though, like, well, you're gonna smoke the whole pack, right?

[Emily]

Yes, it did feel like that. It felt like it was like, I actually, I do think I said that to my partner on point. I was like, it's like smoke the whole pack mentality, where it's like, maybe again, I think there's like some people who should maybe read this whole book, but, but they wouldn't grasp it. But it's also like, but that I got to where it was like, I actually know that smoking is bad and smoking a whole pack would make me feel like, like, like horrible. So I'm gonna, I'm not going to actually, like, I'm gonna not do that.

[Sammy]

And I feel like this comes up in horror a lot where a director will like, I feel like we Even had it with funny games a bit, which I love, but it's a little bit like, oh, you.

[Emily]

You like this, don't you?

[Sammy]

Winking at the audience like, you like this, you sick freak. But there is. And it's not like a clear defined thing, but there's definitely a threshold where it's like, okay, you've made your point. Right? And like. And this just goes so much further past that. And.

[Emily]

And yeah, it's.

[Sammy]

Yeah, it's like, almost unbearable. Really, really unpleasant.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So. Well, thanks. Thanks for reading it.

[Sammy]

I'm glad I read it. I don't know. I. Like, I didn' know that it was this, and I Now I do.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just like, you know, I'm thinking a little harder about a person would not use the word friend. A person I knew in my life who prefer, like, you know, people in your life who are there on Facebook and they don't use their real name on Facebook. That's, you know, play. People do that for whatever reason. Reason. This man chose Patrick Bateman. That was the name that he would use.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And I never read the book. I haven't spoken to this man many years. It's retroactively doing a lot of work.

[Sammy]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Calling question why maybe haven't spoken to him in many years. Yeah, yeah.

[Sammy]

I'm very scared of anybody who loves this book.

[Emily]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm very. I'm very eager to. To get into the movie and to have that discussion and to. Because it. Yeah.

[Craig]

It.

[Emily]

If the book were all that existed and anyone. Anyone ever liked Patrick Bateman dressed up as a.

[Sammy]

You got to hope he's referring to the movie.

[Emily]

Yeah. It's like, you got to hope. I hope so. That's not. We need to. We gotta flag that. But if.

[Andrew]

Yeah. If anybody ever comes up to you as a party and is like, actually, I'm Book Patrick.

[Emily]

You have to get out of my Facebook name. It's Book Patrick Bateman. So, yeah, we'll see what the. What movie Patrick Bateman has to add to the conversation and have y' all.

[Craig]

Have y' all seen and. Or read Fight Club also? Because I do think that like, Fight Club is of a piece with this in terms of the. It. What's interesting is the book comes out before the book Fight Club, but the movie comes out after the movie Fight Club. So there is like Fight Club is like kind of contained within the book to movie pipeline here.

[Emily]

Interesting.

[Craig]

And so. And that is another one where you. You have to be careful with people when they Say they really like it and like, you want to have a conversation about why. I think Fight Club, both the book and the movie are more successful for me. Me at doing satire than this one is. Than this book is.

[Sammy]

Yes.

[Craig]

But, yeah, it was kind of. That's, that's what I've been mulling over is like, how does that, why does that one work for me a little bit more? And it is, I think, because there are, there's clo. There's things more akin to character arcs.

[Sammy]

Right.

[Craig]

That, that helps.

[Sammy]

And maybe if this book was, you know, 200 to 300 pages shorter.

[Emily]

Yeah. This could have been a novella.

[Sammy]

Yeah. And because I, like I said, there are a lot. There's a lot that I really did enjoy about this book, surprisingly. Like, I, I. There were fun moments to be had, interesting moments to be had, and I respect some of what it was trying to do, but it just. Yeah.

[Emily]

Ultimately, you just got kicked a bunch of times.

[Sammy]

I just got kicked a bunch in the face. Yeah.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

This is like all, all, you know, the, the parents in the, in the group will, will understand. Like, I, I frequently with Henry have to have the conversation where, like, when you do something that's funny once, it's not going to be funny the fifth time you do it.

[Emily]

Right.

[Andrew]

Yes. And I.

[Emily]

Classic parenting milestone.

[Andrew]

I think. I think that Ellis could, could stand to, to have this.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Told to him. It's just like the, you know, the first time. Fine. But need to keep going.

[Craig]

How many times did they say hard body?

[Andrew]

Andrew, Hard body or hard bodies appears 58 times in the text.

[Sammy]

Felt like more.

[Emily]

Like a lot more.

[Andrew]

It felt like more, but it's a lot.

[Craig]

I think platinum Amex card gets said like 20 times.

[Andrew]

There's a lot of platinum AMEX card. I don't know how often he says the words blonde, comma, big tits, right. In order like that. But it's more than one. I don't know. Maybe we. Every October, we do a month of spooky books called Spooktober. I just feel like maybe we need to try again with one that's less claustrophobic. With you guys. I don't want you to have. I want you all to have this impression of us is like. Yeah, they just sit around reading American Psycho. I don't know what's wrong with them. Oh, who?

[Emily]

The American Psycho guys?

[Craig]

Yeah, those guys.

[Sammy]

I went straight into Ellen Hildebrand. Hildebrand after this, like a little beach read. I, Which I usually don't. I, I usually don't do fun Light reads. But I really needed it. I really needed something light.

[Emily]

Yeah. So, yeah, look, we made it together.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we. But, yeah. Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Marino Garcia is horror, but not. It doesn't make you feel disgusting the way it does. And then Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson. Those are two that I've read in, like, the last four or five years that. That have been a little. A little horror, but a little fun.

[Sammy]

Great.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Great.

[Craig]

What's.

[Andrew]

So go do that.

[Craig]

Who wrote Her Body and Other Stories? Other Parties. That's also. That's Carmen Maria Machado. Her Body and Other Parties. It's a short story collection.

[Sammy]

This is great. I'm getting a whole yeah list.

[Andrew]

Love it.

[Craig]

Well, I guess we'll. We'll pause our discussion. Yeah. American Psycho for now. We're recording our film episode with you guys in a few days. We're excited to guest on your pod. Thanks again for joining us.

[Sammy]

Thank you for having us. Yeah. We made it as unpleasant as it was. I. I was very excited to talk to you guys, and I had a great time. I mean, you know, I had a great time here.

[Emily]

Yeah, we needed this.

[Sammy]

We needed this.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Craig]

We all needed to come together.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Craig]

Yes, of course.

[Andrew]

Course, like, the further I got in the book, the more I was like, did we miss an email where they just canceled on us?

[Craig]

Because I just.

[Andrew]

I really feel like.

[Emily]

Can't be right.

[Andrew]

I can't believe that they're all reading the same book that I'm reading and we haven't heard from them.

[Emily]

What if we weren't. What if you were reading an entirely different book than the rest of us read?

[Sammy]

That would be a real bummer.

[Emily]

That'd be really tough for you. But just in some ways.

[Sammy]

I can't remember who we said it, but Henley was supposed to join for this episode, and so she did read.

[Emily]

Read some.

[Sammy]

Some of American Psycho for. For no reason.

[Andrew]

I'm just gonna have to let her talk for like, 27 minutes.

[Emily]

Yeah, she's gonna get a lot of.

[Craig]

If folks want to find your show, where do they go?

[Sammy]

We are @tscw podcast on Instagram or. I mean, our episodes are available wherever you get.

[Craig]

Great.

[Sammy]

Get your podcasts. Yeah.

[Craig]

Wonderful. Well, thanks, guys. That'll be a wrap on this episode. And we can't wait to join you on your show to talk about the. The hit comedy sweeping the nation.

[Sammy]

It's going to be so light and breezy.

[Craig]

American Psycho.

[Andrew]

Too funny to watch.

[Sammy]

Can't wait. Too silly.

[Craig]

Thanks, guys.

[Sammy]

Thank you.

[Craig]

Thank you both. Andrew, what a wonderful romp. That was.

[Andrew]

Yeah, man, those, all those people, all four of them are so funny and insightful.

[Craig]

I feel so alive having just discussed how Psycho my American country is.

[Andrew]

What we didn't. One thing we didn't talk about is that at no point in the book does he turn to the reader and say, man, I'm a real American Psycho. He just lets it be implied. And I don't know, I just feel like if you're gonna make your book be that long, you gotta have, you gotta give me something.

[Craig]

For a book that is certainly not blunt in any way, shape or form. He did miss an opportunity there. But yeah, we're, we're glad that we were able to have Emily and Sammy on the show. Go check out their show. Too scary. Didn't watch. It's a fun time. I recently enjoyed their Sinners episode.

[Andrew]

That was a fun one.

[Craig]

I had a good time listening to their Perfect Blue episode. I watch Perfect Blue last year was a great way to check out that movie again. So, yeah, go give them a listen if you don't already. I know some folks were excited about the crossover and yeah, we're going to be on their show this week talking about the film starring Patrick Batman, Christian Bale.

[Andrew]

Christian Bale himself.

[Craig]

Yeah. If you want to know more. Oh no. If you have stories about your relationship to American Psycho and as long as they're okay for us to read, please.

[Andrew]

Please write them in notepad exe, print them on your little brother laser printer and then crumple them up and throw.

[Craig]

Them in the trash and then send us an email about something else. Overdubodmail.com find us on social media. Verdupod Nick Lauren just composed our theme music. Andrew, if folks want to know more about our show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overduepodcast.com is of course the Internet website. We have up there links to the, the books that we have read and the ones we are going to read as well as the entire back catalog. Patreon.com overdue pot is our Patreon website. You can support us directly financially there. We get a cut of that. That's a weird way to describe that. We get most of that money like minus Patreon and credit card processing fees.

[Craig]

Yeah, especially the website patreon.com overdue pod. Please go there.

[Andrew]

We buy equipment with that. We buy books with that. We buy hosting with that. We buy childcare with that. Like it's, it's stuff that's essential to making the show happen. So thank you so much to everybody who already subscribes. You get access to our Discord community bonus episodes early. Our next long read about Tolkien Silmarillion called the Silver Silly.

[Craig]

Marillion really put ourselves on that one.

[Andrew]

Got too silly on that one. That one starts soon.

[Craig]

Yep. And yeah, Ad Free Episodes. They're ad Free.

[Andrew]

Ad Free Episodes. Ad Free Episodes. Newsletter. Yeah, lots of stuff.

[Craig]

So check that out, Andrew. Next week we're continuing our gruesome romp through American history.

[Andrew]

Another look into the Head of an American Psycho.

[Craig]

Peanuts by Charles Schultz.

[Andrew]

Into Charlie Brown's giant, round psychotic head.

[Craig]

Now I want Patrick Bateman memes with Charlie Brown in them. We're going to be talking about two Peanuts collections.

[Andrew]

All Rats takes on a whole new dimension.

[Craig]

The complete Patrick Bateman, Volume 1 and Volume 10. We're doing like a. A gap to get good span because.

[Andrew]

I wanted to get like, early, weird, mean Peanuts and then I wanted to get sort of snoopy greeting card Peanuts.

[Craig]

Yeah. Because it probably includes like, post the Christmas, like, movie. I would.

[Andrew]

Yeah, we'll talk about it. Sure.

[Craig]

So, yeah, tune in for that next week. And Andrew, that's it. That's the show.

[Andrew]

All right. Until we talk to you next week, Psychos, please try to be happy.

[Craig]

Please.

[Andrew]

That was a Headgum podcast.