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The Shards: A novel
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A novel of sensational literary and psychological suspense from the best-selling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho that tracks a group of privileged high school friends in a vibrantly fictionalized 1980s Los Angeles as a serial killer strikes across the city
"A thrilling page turner from Ellis, who revisits the world that made him a literary star with a stylish scary new story that doesn't disappoint." –Town & Country
Bret Easton Ellis's masterful new novel is a story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city.
Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret's obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them-and Bret in particular-with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends-or his own mind-to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.
Set against the intensely vivid and nostalgic backdrop of pre-Less Than Zero L.A., The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret's life at seventeen-sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage. Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting, and often darkly funny, The Shards is Ellis at his inimitable best.
"A thrilling page turner from Ellis, who revisits the world that made him a literary star with a stylish scary new story that doesn't disappoint." –Town & Country
Bret Easton Ellis's masterful new novel is a story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city.
Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret's obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them-and Bret in particular-with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends-or his own mind-to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.
Set against the intensely vivid and nostalgic backdrop of pre-Less Than Zero L.A., The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret's life at seventeen-sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage. Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting, and often darkly funny, The Shards is Ellis at his inimitable best.
Editorial Reviews
"Ellis is a true literary craftsman, and the novel's imagery is lush and gorgeous . . . there is an exciting new vulnerability in Ellis's latest book, inviting the reader more profoundly into the emotional realm of the protagonist than he has with his previous characters." -The New York Times Book Review
"It's been a dozen years since Bret Easton Ellis published a novel. And his latest, The Shards . . . is worth the wait. Hermetic, paranoid, sleek, dark-and with brief explosions of the sex and violence that have characterized Ellis' oeuvre-The Shards is a stark reminder that the American Psycho author is a genre unto himself." -NPR
"Cleverly done . . . eerie . . . The Shards establishes a tricky two-step of sincerity and unreliability." -The Wall Street Journal
"The teen narrator is perversely endearing, through the sheer force of his striving and unreliability . . . Here, for sure, is a horror story of the 80s." -Air Mail
"A thrilling page turner from Ellis, who revisits the world that made him a literary star with a stylish scary new story that doesn't disappoint." –Town & Country
"[Ellis] ups the ante in several ways: he depicts a lavish lifestyle fueled by money and privilege, explores his own fluid sexuality (and that of some of his friends), and adds a lurid story of home invasions and murders (one victim is a high school friend). In effect, he mashes up Less Than Zero with American Psycho . . . As Ellis explores the theme of lost innocence, he demonstrates his skill as a storyteller." –Publishers Weekly
"A surprisingly seductive work of erotic horror . . . [Ellis] ably captures how Bret's paranoia intensifies out of that emotional distance and how the urge for feeling and connection infects and warps his personality. Bret Ellis the character is trying to play it cool, but Bret Easton Ellis the author knows just how much he's covering up." –Kirkus Reviews<...
"It's been a dozen years since Bret Easton Ellis published a novel. And his latest, The Shards . . . is worth the wait. Hermetic, paranoid, sleek, dark-and with brief explosions of the sex and violence that have characterized Ellis' oeuvre-The Shards is a stark reminder that the American Psycho author is a genre unto himself." -NPR
"Cleverly done . . . eerie . . . The Shards establishes a tricky two-step of sincerity and unreliability." -The Wall Street Journal
"The teen narrator is perversely endearing, through the sheer force of his striving and unreliability . . . Here, for sure, is a horror story of the 80s." -Air Mail
"A thrilling page turner from Ellis, who revisits the world that made him a literary star with a stylish scary new story that doesn't disappoint." –Town & Country
"[Ellis] ups the ante in several ways: he depicts a lavish lifestyle fueled by money and privilege, explores his own fluid sexuality (and that of some of his friends), and adds a lurid story of home invasions and murders (one victim is a high school friend). In effect, he mashes up Less Than Zero with American Psycho . . . As Ellis explores the theme of lost innocence, he demonstrates his skill as a storyteller." –Publishers Weekly
"A surprisingly seductive work of erotic horror . . . [Ellis] ably captures how Bret's paranoia intensifies out of that emotional distance and how the urge for feeling and connection infects and warps his personality. Bret Ellis the character is trying to play it cool, but Bret Easton Ellis the author knows just how much he's covering up." –Kirkus Reviews<...
Readers Top Reviews
MinuSteven Carrie
Uhhhh wow! Such great writing, very entertaining, nostalgic, thrilling, scary at times! A bit smutty but I liked it! Just read it! Amazing book!!!
Robert ReardonMin
Totally engrossing … amazing storytelling … few novels can make me forget where I am and, as Stephen King would put it, fall through the page, but this one did
MadelineRobert Re
I’ve long been a fan of Bret Easton Ellis since I read American Psycho in high school. Since then I’ve read all of his works. I think this new book is my favorite yet. It’s a cool blend of the adolescent numbness vibe of Less Than Zero and the thriller aspect of American Psycho. Classic B.E.E with descriptions of restaurants, music, and outfits. Definitely recommend!
otsMadelineRobert
If you like his style this is a worthwhile novel. I liked 'Less Than Zero' and 'American Psycho' better myself. Some of the same style elements are here-- descriptions of what people are wearing, their pervy sex habits, overwritten scenes of extreme violence, and in this book a pretty good sound track; that is to say many references to the early 80s music the characters are listening to. Remember 'What I like About You' by the Romantics? 'Time For Me to Fly' by REO Speed Wagon? 'Dreaming' by Blondie? Many more hits from those days are mentioned throughout the book. I had to take a look at a few of them on YouTube again. Nice! All things considered, compared to so many other popular novels being aggressively marketed out there these days, yeah, this is worth a few days of your reading time.
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
I REMEMBER IT WAS THE SUNDAY afternoon before Labor Day in 1981 and our senior year was about to begin on that Tuesday morning of September 8-and I remember that the Windover Stables were located on a bluff above Malibu, where Deborah Schaffer was boarding her new horse, Spirit, in one of the twenty separate barns where the animals were housed, and I remember I was driving solo, following Susan Reynolds and Thom Wright in Thom's convertible Corvette along Pacific Coast Highway, the ocean dimly shimmering beside us in the humid air, until we reached the turnoff that took us up to the stables, and I remember I was listening to the Cars, the song was "Dangerous Type"-on a mixtape I'd made that included Blondie, the Babys, Duran Duran-as I kept behind Thom's car up the winding road to the entrance of the stables, where we parked next to Deborah's gleaming brand-new BMW, the only car in the lot on that Sunday, and then checked in at the front office, and where we followed a tree-lined trail until we located Debbie trotting Spirit by his reins around a gated arena that was deserted-she had already ridden him but the saddle was still on and she was wearing her riding attire. The sight of the horse shocked me-and I remember that I shivered at its presence in the late-afternoon heat. Spirit had replaced a horse Debbie retired in June.
"Hey," Debbie said to us in her flat, uninflected voice. I remember how it sounded so hollow in the emptiness that surrounded us-a deadened echo. Beyond the manicured stables painted white and pine green was a forest of trees blocking the view of the Pacific-you could see small patches of glassy blue but everything seemed ensconced and still, nothing moved, as if we were encased in a kind of plastic dome. I remember it being very hot that day and I felt that I had somehow been forced into visiting the stables simply because Debbie had become my girlfriend that summer and it was required of me and not something I necessarily wanted to experience. But I was resigned: I may have wanted to stay home and work on the novel I was writing, but at seventeen I also wanted to keep up certain appearances.
I remember Thom said "Wow" as he neared the horse, and, like everything with Thom, it might have sounded genuine, but it was also, like Debbie's intonation, flat, as if he didn't really have an opinion: everything was cool, everything was chill, everything was a mild wow. Susan murmured in agreement as she took off her Wayfarers.
"Hey, handsome," Debbie said to me, placing a kiss on my cheek.
I remember I tried to stare admiringly at the animal but I really didn't want to care about the horse-and yet it was so large and alive that I was shocked by it. Up close it was kind of magnificent, and it definitely made an impression on me-it just seemed too huge, and only made of muscle, a threat-It could hurt you, I thought- but it was actually calm, and in that moment had no problem letting us stroke its flanks. I remember that I was aware of Spirit being yet another example of Debbie's wealth and her intertwined carelessness: the cost of maintaining and housing the animal would be astronomical and yet who knew how interested she really was at seventeen and if that interest was going to be sustained. But this was another aspect I hadn't known about Debbie even though we had been going to school together since fifth grade-I hadn't paid attention until now: I found out she'd always been interested in horses and yet I never knew it until the summer before our senior year, when I became her boyfriend and saw the shelves in her bedroom lined with ribbons and trophies and photographs of her at various equestrian events. I had always been more interested in her father, Terry Schaffer, than I was in Debbie. In 1981 Terry Schaffer was thirty-nine and already extremely wealthy, having made the bulk of his fortune on a few movies that had-in two unexpected cases-become blockbusters, and he was one of the town's most respected and in-demand producers. He had taste, or at least what Hollywood considered taste-he had been nominated for an Oscar twice-and he was constantly offered jobs to run studios, something he had no interest in. Terry was also gay-not openly but discreetly-and he was married to Liz Schaffer, who was lost in so much privilege and pain that I wondered if Terry's gayness registered with her at all anymore. Deborah was their only child. Terry died in 1992.
THOM WAS ASKING Debbie general questions about the horse and Susan glanced over at me and smiled-I rolled my eyes, not at Thom, but at the overall non-situation. Susan rolled her eyes back at me: a connection was made between us that didn't involve our respective mates. After petting and admiring the horse there didn't seem much re...
I REMEMBER IT WAS THE SUNDAY afternoon before Labor Day in 1981 and our senior year was about to begin on that Tuesday morning of September 8-and I remember that the Windover Stables were located on a bluff above Malibu, where Deborah Schaffer was boarding her new horse, Spirit, in one of the twenty separate barns where the animals were housed, and I remember I was driving solo, following Susan Reynolds and Thom Wright in Thom's convertible Corvette along Pacific Coast Highway, the ocean dimly shimmering beside us in the humid air, until we reached the turnoff that took us up to the stables, and I remember I was listening to the Cars, the song was "Dangerous Type"-on a mixtape I'd made that included Blondie, the Babys, Duran Duran-as I kept behind Thom's car up the winding road to the entrance of the stables, where we parked next to Deborah's gleaming brand-new BMW, the only car in the lot on that Sunday, and then checked in at the front office, and where we followed a tree-lined trail until we located Debbie trotting Spirit by his reins around a gated arena that was deserted-she had already ridden him but the saddle was still on and she was wearing her riding attire. The sight of the horse shocked me-and I remember that I shivered at its presence in the late-afternoon heat. Spirit had replaced a horse Debbie retired in June.
"Hey," Debbie said to us in her flat, uninflected voice. I remember how it sounded so hollow in the emptiness that surrounded us-a deadened echo. Beyond the manicured stables painted white and pine green was a forest of trees blocking the view of the Pacific-you could see small patches of glassy blue but everything seemed ensconced and still, nothing moved, as if we were encased in a kind of plastic dome. I remember it being very hot that day and I felt that I had somehow been forced into visiting the stables simply because Debbie had become my girlfriend that summer and it was required of me and not something I necessarily wanted to experience. But I was resigned: I may have wanted to stay home and work on the novel I was writing, but at seventeen I also wanted to keep up certain appearances.
I remember Thom said "Wow" as he neared the horse, and, like everything with Thom, it might have sounded genuine, but it was also, like Debbie's intonation, flat, as if he didn't really have an opinion: everything was cool, everything was chill, everything was a mild wow. Susan murmured in agreement as she took off her Wayfarers.
"Hey, handsome," Debbie said to me, placing a kiss on my cheek.
I remember I tried to stare admiringly at the animal but I really didn't want to care about the horse-and yet it was so large and alive that I was shocked by it. Up close it was kind of magnificent, and it definitely made an impression on me-it just seemed too huge, and only made of muscle, a threat-It could hurt you, I thought- but it was actually calm, and in that moment had no problem letting us stroke its flanks. I remember that I was aware of Spirit being yet another example of Debbie's wealth and her intertwined carelessness: the cost of maintaining and housing the animal would be astronomical and yet who knew how interested she really was at seventeen and if that interest was going to be sustained. But this was another aspect I hadn't known about Debbie even though we had been going to school together since fifth grade-I hadn't paid attention until now: I found out she'd always been interested in horses and yet I never knew it until the summer before our senior year, when I became her boyfriend and saw the shelves in her bedroom lined with ribbons and trophies and photographs of her at various equestrian events. I had always been more interested in her father, Terry Schaffer, than I was in Debbie. In 1981 Terry Schaffer was thirty-nine and already extremely wealthy, having made the bulk of his fortune on a few movies that had-in two unexpected cases-become blockbusters, and he was one of the town's most respected and in-demand producers. He had taste, or at least what Hollywood considered taste-he had been nominated for an Oscar twice-and he was constantly offered jobs to run studios, something he had no interest in. Terry was also gay-not openly but discreetly-and he was married to Liz Schaffer, who was lost in so much privilege and pain that I wondered if Terry's gayness registered with her at all anymore. Deborah was their only child. Terry died in 1992.
THOM WAS ASKING Debbie general questions about the horse and Susan glanced over at me and smiled-I rolled my eyes, not at Thom, but at the overall non-situation. Susan rolled her eyes back at me: a connection was made between us that didn't involve our respective mates. After petting and admiring the horse there didn't seem much re...
