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Bret In Dallas

The Dallas Morning News has an article on Bret's appearance there this past week. This was the event I was planning to attend before my job got in the way.

I was interested to see in the article that Bret talked about what he considered some of his novels to be derivative of:

What was surprising about Mr. Ellis was his admission of his novels' often derivative natures. Less Than Zero "ripped off" Joan Didion (his words). It's a glib, sexed-up Play It as It Lays - for teens who haven't read much. Don DeLillo's Mao II inspired Glamorama . And Lunar Park, as critics have noted, does what Phillip Roth did first and without his dazzling complexity or intensity - put himself on the line as narrator, use the razor-thin line between fact and fancy to cut through hypocrisy and easy jadedness.

Lunar Park, The Movie

2 weeks ago, I mentioned that Bret had talked about who would play him in the movie version of Lunar Park if it were ever made into a film. His answer, though playful, seemed serious enough at the time that it made me think it may be a real possibility of this book being made into a film.

Well, today that is apparently 1 step closer to reality as a legitimate offer has been made to Ellis for the movie rights to Lunar Park. Hopefully, more will be known within the next couple of days/weeks as to who made the offer and what type of film they are wanting to make from this novel. Hopefully, they are looking at this as a movie about Bret Easton Ellis with a horror backdrop rather than as a straight horror flick with Ellis as just another character.

Stephen King Reviews Lunar Park

Stephen King writes about Lunar Park @ Entertainment Weekly after being told by a fellow patron of Borders that Ellis has mentioned LP was partly an homage to him.

Whether or not Bret Easton Ellis is "doing" Stephen King at the beginning of Lunar Park (little parenthetical expressions and all) doesn't matter, because by the end, all the masks, imitations, and pharmacological shopping lists have been set aside. Even in American Psycho, that boringly bloodthirsty book, it was clear to me that Ellis was a fine storyteller. It's this facet of his writing that has most appealed to readers and been most overlooked by critics. It seems at times to have appalled Ellis himself (one could almost believe it's the Terby hidden inside his laptop, flexing its claws). I got a clear sense of Lunar Park having started almost as a joke - perhaps a rather desperate one, part apology for American Psycho - and having finished as what is close to a credo. That is the true magic of novels, which often possess more strength (and reality) than their creators suppose: They see into our secret hearts.

Beckerman Meets Ellis

Marty Beckerman has posted a 'transcript' of his conversation with Ellis at a recent book signing [he's also posted an uber-short review of Lunar Park].

Marty is the author of Generation S.L.U.T., which I reviewed last year. His next book, Retard Nation, will be released in February 2006.

Lunar Park, The Movie?

The Washington Square News has an interview with Ellis. When asked who he'd like to play the role of Bret Easton Ellis if Lunar Park were ever adapted for film, Bret had this to say:

I'd give it Jake Gyllenhaal - no, I'm kidding. They've offered it to all the actors my age. They offered it to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp. And everyone turned it down. The only person who didn't was Benicio del Toro, who actually began running around the studios saying, "I wanna star in this."

Not sure if thats all in jest or not. I haven't heard anything about the book being optioned for film yet.

Ellis Audio Interview

Tom Waters has posted 4 audio snippets from an interview he did with Bret Easton Ellis last week.

Discussing his late father.
Discussing his critics.
Discussing a possible Less Than Zero sequel.
Talking about Donna Tartt.

And since I didn't know offhand, here is some Donna Tartt info.

Tom Waters is the author of First Person, Last Straw.

First Person, Last Straw is a collection of explosively funny rants, celebrity interviews and prose by Buffalo humorist Tom Waters. His rants cover smoking, 9/11, Dave Barry, cartoons, games, strip clubs, religion, singles dating, babies and hair coloring. Celebrity reviews and interviews include California Governor Candidate Mary Carey, cartoonists Shannon Wheeler and Jason Yungbluth, Director Jon Elston and Poet Li Farrello to name a few. There's also a 20 page party jounal ala Andy Warhol diaries; drinks, name dropping, gossip andn unflinchingly honest inebriation. Bombastic, obnoxious and hilarious in turns, First Person Last Straw is a must have for those in need of uncontrollable laughter!

Suicide Girls Interviews Bret

Daniel Robert Epstein has an interview with Bret @ SuicideGirls.com. Lots of sites seem to be making a big deal out of Bret saying that Roger Avary had the rights to a Glamorama film - but readers of this site will know that this has been in the works since at least 2003.

Ellis did come clean about what he intended to do during this book tour.

Well you know what? I did have this whole sort of performance planned when I was about to embark on this tour. I was going to do it in character as the Bret Easton Ellis of the book. About two interviews in, it became exhausting. I'm not an actor, I can't do it. It wasn't fun either. It was having to maintain a pose with a journalist who wanted genuine answers to genuine questions and it didn't work out.

UPDATE: I may have been a bit too laid back about what this news of Avary purchasing the lifetime rights of Glamorama means - see the 1st comment for why.

UPDATE 2: Minnesota Daily also has an uber-short interview w/ Bret.

A 'Less Than Zero' Love Story?

Elizabeth Barr has a good interview with Bret in the Buffalo News. Like many of his previous interviews this year, he continues to speak ill of American Psycho.

"Patrick Bateman becoming an icon made me resentful. Of course, as a writer you resent that. That will be on my tombstone, that I created that character. And I resented the character haunting me."

And, he's still toying with the idea of re-using the characters from Less Than Zero in a future novel.

"I've always written about people my age at any given time. It's not surprising that I'm no longer interested in writing about youth culture. I don't want to hang out with 20-year-olds. I don't want to write Less than Zero again," he said.

"However, I am interested in returning to Less than Zero, " the novel that was published while he was a 21-year-old Bennington College student. "I was back in L.A. recently after a long time away, driving around, and I would think about where Blair and Clay are and that they probably have kids and that their kids would be about the age of the kids in Less Than Zero. That is something I cannot not think about.

"I don't know if it's a book yet. Part of me thinks it's a really cheesey idea - there are so many pitfalls, so many traps. It might be a love story. It's just this idea that's been haunting me."

Signed Lunar Park Winners

We have our contest winners! Back on August 9th, we announced that we were giving away 5 signed copies of Lunar Park to folks that made positive contributions to the forum for the remainder of August. The winners are:

meh
videodrome
mitch
JamesG
suicide

A big thanks needs to go to Knopf for providing the books.

Lunar Park Event Photos

James has posted pictures from a Lunar Park event he attended last Saturday, and has graciously allowed me to reproduce a couple fo the photos here.

There are a few more pictures at James' site if you are interested.

Lunar Park Event Description

Thanks to David Reeve for sending in his account of the Lunar Park book signing in California last weekend.

I attended the Lunar Park book signing over the weekend. It was hosted by Skylight Books in Los Feliz, near Hollywood.

I arrived 15 minutes before showtime and the place was SRO. Maybe 200 people. Others collected outside the doors, peering through the windows while those indoors wrapped around columns of books, unable to see Bret for the reading and QA. Speaking of which, Bret - ever so humble - greeted the crowd and read five pages from LUNAR PARK, which basically established the intrigue of the novel. Then he took questions from the crowd. Here is what I remember:

Bret thinks the latest draft of the GLAMORAMA screenplay is excellent, but doubts the movie will get off the ground given the recent terrorist activity in London, and the fact that the script is very expensive to produce. Doubts about Kip Pardue's box office value persist, and being cast again as Victor is unlikely - according to producers - (but who knows?) Bret really likes Kip in the role.

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