Random Notes

S&S, Not S&M. Bret Easton Ellis, 26, is the author of the successful novel Less than Zero, and the not-so-successful The Rules of Attraction. His latest, American Psycho, is the story of a homicidal yuppie, and contains passages of such explicit sexual violence that when editor Robert Asahina distributed an excerpt of the book at a recent Simon & Schuster sales meeting, it was greeted first by a shocked and sullen silence, and then by spirited but sneaky outrage. Following the meeting a few women huddled with their male supervisors to express concern, but when they were rebuffed with formulaic invocations of the First Amendment, they decided to let the Ellis sludge leak onto the desks of magazine editors.

I have not read the whole of American Psycho, and so cannot judge how much, if any, of it is not obscene. Until recently, one of the few people outside S&S who had read it all was artist George Corsillo, designer of the dust-jackets for the earlier Ellis novels. Mr. Corsillo refused to work on American Psycho, because, he said, “I felt disgusted with myself for reading it.” I had a similar reaction. It is vile.

Featured Tags

Constitutional Government

Congress

Civil Society

S&S, Not S&M. Bret Easton Ellis, 26, is the author of the successful novel Less than Zero, and the not-so-successful The Rules of Attraction. His latest, American Psycho, is the story of a homicidal yuppie, and contains passages of such explicit sexual violence that when editor Robert Asahina distributed an excerpt of the book at a recent Simon & Schuster sales meeting, it was greeted first by a shocked and sullen silence, and then by spirited but sneaky outrage. Following the meeting a few women huddled with their male supervisors to express concern, but when they were rebuffed with formulaic invocations of the First Amendment, they decided to let the Ellis sludge leak onto the desks of magazine editors.

I have not read the whole of American Psycho, and so cannot judge how much, if any, of it is not obscene. Until recently, one of the few people outside S&S who had read it all was artist George Corsillo, designer of the dust-jackets for the earlier Ellis novels. Mr. Corsillo refused to work on American Psycho, because, he said, “I felt disgusted with myself for reading it.” I had a similar reaction. It is vile.