Biography of Bret Easton Ellis, Celebrity Novelist

Bret Easton Ellis is my favorite living author and one of my major writing influences. I count his novel American Psycho among the best works in modern American literature. Here is a brief biography of celebrity novelist Bret Easton Ellis.

Born March 7, 1964, in Los Angeles, California, Bret Easton Ellis was the son of a wealthy property developer and a housewife, who would divorce in 1982. Bret Easton Ellis would rise to fame while still in college at Bennigton in Vermont. His first novel, Less Than Zero, was a unique story of disaffected, wealthy teenagers in Los Angeles. Less Than Zero was critically acclaimed and sold more than fifty thousand copies in its first year. It would eventually be made into a Hollywood film starring Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey, Jr. and Jamie Gertz. (The film version of Less Than Zero is terrible, nothing like the magnificent novel).

Bret Easton Ellis moved to New York to release his second novel, The Rules of Attraction. The Rules of Attraction was about an odd love triangle (or some other strange shape) between both homo and heterosexual youths at a college named Camden Arts College in New England. (It is actually Bennington, thinly disguised). Another outstanding book, The Rules of Attraction was eventually made into a film by the same name, starring James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossaman and Jessical Biel. The film version, directed by Roger Avary, is a fun, clever and witty interpretation and a must-see for any fan of Bret Easton Ellis.

Controversy surrounded Bret Easton Ellis for his third novel, American Psycho, a graphically violent novel about a seemingly normal, successful New Yorker who gets his kicks out of murdering women and male colleagues. While Simon & Schuster was originally going to publish the novel, they eventually shied away because of the controversy. The novel was ultimately released by Vintage as a paperback original, and was a huge success. The film version stars Christian Bale as the main character, Patrick Bateman, but it is a sorry adaptation that should not be viewed in lieu of the book.