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The Theory That Completely Changes American Psycho

The Book Club

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Why was the book so heavily censored on publication? Is the novel gratuitously violent? And, what happened when Tabby met Bret Easton Ellis?

Join Dominic Sandbrook and Tabitha Syrett as they delve into the fascinating story behind the writing of American Psycho, and the world it was born of.

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00:00 American Psycho: Violence, Satire and Consumerism
01:40 Klarna
03:08 Reagan’s America and the Wall Street Boom
08:24 Serial Killers, Horror and the Dark Side of Capitalism
10:48 Bret Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt and the Literary Brat Pack
13:36 How Patrick Bateman Was Created
17:00 The American Psycho Publication Scandal
21:08 Inside Patrick Bateman’s World
25:47 Skincare, Status and the Cult of Appearance
31:03 Murder, Consumerism and the Fight Club Connection
34:37 Is Patrick Bateman Completely Dead Inside?
39:40 Why American Psycho Is So Funny
43:19 Violence, Misogyny and the Feminist Backlash
46:06 Was American Psycho Ahead of Its Time?
48:14 Can Violent Satire Become a How-To Guide?
51:38 Sex, Violence and Making the Reader Complicit
53:35 Did Patrick Bateman Actually Kill Anyone?
56:52 The Theory That Changes Patrick Bateman Completely
59:41 “This Is Not an Exit”: What the Ending Means
1:00:18 Is American Psycho Actually a Good Novel?
1:01:53 Christian Bale and the American Psycho Movie

Senior Producer: Nicole Maslen
Assistant Producer: Alfie Norris
Social Producer: Harry Balden
Video Editor: Joe Pettit
Executive Producer: Dom Johnson

20 Comments

@lukesapiano1798 2 days ago

Doms point about getting bored by the endless lists is brilliant. Ultimately batemans mundane details mean that even the reader becomes numb and flat and craves the next scene of depravity. In my judgement the effect on the reader is intentional and masterful

@edfagan4251 2 days ago

As a Gen-Xer, read this when it came out and it was understood as being a satire--one of the scary things about it is that many of the characters depicted as being over the top are seen as much more normalized today. The over-analysis of the pop music, which at the time was seen as the most bland, corporate, inauthentic 'products' (Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and the News), could now be seen everywhere on youtube, tiktok, etc. Also, Dominic has the timeline of generations a little mixed up. While there certainly was a US cultural backlash to the late '60s/early '70s mindset, the children of those people were not adults in the '80s. The yuppies of the '80s were baby boomers, just like the hippies of the late '60s and early '70s, and this flipping of cultural identity is commented upon in the book and contributes to the sense of shallowness and unreality, that identity is just a product of what uniform you choose to wear.

@stevenliu6514 2 days ago

Let’s see Dominic Sandbrook’s card.

@EricWenders 2 days ago

I got an ad for 'Black Lane' during this, a chauffeur service that seems tailor-made for Patrick Bateman.

@EricWenders 2 days ago

I read this at a point in my early twenties when I was fairly broke and often read entire books in bookshops, going in on my lunch break to read until I'd finished. I often felt pretty glad at the end of a book that I hadn't wasted money on it. When I picked up 'American Psycho,' I'd just read a recent offering, 'Model Behaviour,' by one of Ellis's NYC contemporaries, Jay McInnerny, and that's how I felt about that. I read two pages of 'American Psycho' and immediately took it too the till and bought it – and never regretted it.

@ateE6forT7 2 days ago

I haven't read it in 35 years, but I did my best to dissect it, and I'm with Dominic. I think most of the murders were the fantasies of a cardboard man. He did seem to unravel, though, and I think that the Tunnel Club was a portal between the realms of his reality

@pik910 2 days ago

I believe Ellis has explicitly stated his intention for you to skip or skim over the parts nihilistically obsessing over the details of shallow consumerism. I do not think he is a good writer or the book is enjoyable, but that it is an incredible piece of transformative art that comes back to haunt you, that is rightfully considered a classic. The meaning of the book is quickly explained, but not the intensity with which it makes is point. The purposelessness and repetitiveness are supposed to bludgeon you, and they do. As to the ambivalence of it being real, the true horror lies in it not mattering.

@roxannecornell8987 2 days ago

"Murders and executions" transformed into "mergers and acquisitions" seems a nod to Quilty's questions to Humbert at the Enchanted Huntress: "where the devil did you get her," etc.

@ateE6forT7 2 days ago

I, usually, haven't read most of the books you discuss. I just like listening to you both. I am a big fan of this book, though, so thanks breaking it down, for me 🙂

@Bwayfactchkpolis 2 days ago

Ellis became famous for his Earlier novel Less Than Zero (1985).

@Joanna_Bluebird 2 days ago

I won't be reading this one, as I know the violence won't be to my tastes, but once again, I really enjoyed your discussion about it.

@kelliestough3964 2 days ago

I confess that I only got a quarter of the way in before I put it in the donation box. I heard about the violence so I skipped ahead to the first incident and realized I just don’t need these scenes living in my head. I did appreciate the podcast explaining it all though. I wasn’t familiar enough with it to know that it was probably all in Bateman’s head. I also HATED the endless lists of brand names etc. Thanks for the podcast!

@francesT5877 1 day ago

On another subject entirely, I hope you’ll do a book by Julian Barnes, one of my favorite writers.

@pik910 2 days ago

In the scene at the U2 concert there is a description of men trying to recruit girls to go backstage with the band. I think this is long before there was any awareness of this being a thing (which leads to lots of abuse). I think U2 as a band is chosen because of the clash between Bonos self-portrayal and us not necessarily taking it at face value, in the book the humanism is just another superficial front with a dark underbelly.

@XellDincht-y5s 2 days ago (edited)

Impressive, very nice. Let's see Paul Allan's review of American Psycho

All jokes aside, I did read a couple of chapters, and Bateman`s daily life is so boring, and there are so many characters you lose track, but I think it's all intentional

@tomislavklauski5060 1 day ago

Excellent episode

@28johann1 2 days ago

The reader comes to realise that it doesn’t really matter if Bateman committed the violent acts he’s described throughout the novel, for Ellis proposes that even a person who is NOT torturing and murdering strangers and friends could have the desire and capability for such violence inside of them, because it's the society in which they are immersed that's has bred such tendencies. Ellis doesn’t need him to act on this violence in order to critique the hyper-capitalist, materialistic, and shallow society he saw growing to dominate American life and culture in the late 1980s. The 'truth' is, in many ways, unnecessary to the novel’s argument.

@jeffreycomer1365 1 day ago

Enjoyed the session… wild horses couldn’t compel me to read this book.

@maisieparker1211 1 day ago

I really enjoyed Dominic’s eloquent description of the culture of the 80s. As a 90s baby I felt like I was there! The videos and images were great too.

@unaontour 2 days ago

I remember when this book was released and the moral panic around it. I read it. There are scenes in that book I will never forget and make me sick to even think of them. And I will never read it again. But it's a great book, it's funny and ridiculous, it's obvious Bateman is making the whole thing up ... it's a sick fantasy of a man who one knows pretending he's leading this secret life of power and horror.