Picador classic american psycho7/6/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() A copy was passed around that fell open at certain passages in the way that Lady Chatterley’s Lover did for a previous generation: those in the know would invite others to read the passage involving an abducted woman and a hungry rat, and sniggeringly wait for them to turn green. My first encounter with the book, at school in the 1990s, was not exactly in a feminist context. Some feminists even risked the wrath of their sisters by pointing out that it was meant to be an exposure of the banal preoccupations of its era. Its admirers cite its unmatched insight into the mindset of a late-capitalist generation of American men that sees women as disposable accessories. Back in 1991, one feminist campaigner denounced American Psycho as a “how-to novel on the torture and dismemberment of women”. The fact that it remains in print – and has spawned a hit film and even a stage musical – will be seen by some as an indictment of the fundamental misogyny of Western society. Even Ellis himself, when I ask him about his most famous work, admits, “It wouldn’t be published today.” Many people have found something almost offensive about the anniversary falling at a time when men are being asked to think urgently about how to make the world safer for women. ![]() The 30th birthday of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho is not a universal cause for celebration. ![]()
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