Post Lunar Park Video Interview

Another video interview via Abszinth of Bret in his mother's house shortly after the release of Lunar Park.

Bret In Budapest Roundup

A big thanks goes out to Hungarian reader abszinth for gathering all this info on Bret's appearance at the Budapest Book Festival. She also posted a long account of her experience at her blog including a few MP3s of Bret talking and reading from Lunar Park.

This photo was taken before the first dedication on Friday.

... continue reading this entry

Videos From Budapest

I have not had a chance to view these yet (my wife gave birth to our 2nd child on April 23rd) so I don't know much about their content, but here are 3 videos of Bret's appearance at the Budapest International Book Festival.

... continue reading this entry

Bret In Budapest

Bret will be the guest of honor at Budapest's 15th International Book Festival. The Festival runs from April 24-27. [thanks Stephanie]

LA Times Looks Back On Ellis' Career

The LA Times has a nice article about Bret [thank Matthew], his place in the literary world and how the public and critics perceive him.

And because a literary, as opposed to a genre, novel is supposed to be about "depth" or "substance," one thing that's never forgiven is a perceived superficiality.

"He has a way of capturing flattened affect and cynicism, which is part of American life," said (NY Times film critic, A.O.) Scott. "He's fastened onto a loss of self, the replacement of feeling with intensity of sensation - whether by sex or drugs or violence or celebrity. Part of the reasons these books feel so cold, and sometimes unpleasant, is that there's no relief. In a way they're dystopian novels."

Thats a pretty good summary from AO Scott. I always laughed at the people who criticized Ellis' work for being shallow and empty, because for me it seems that his characters were meant to be exactly that. Writing stories about characters that are most interested in what brand of clothing they are wearing or what restaurant they were going to eat at was part of the point - its a social commentary on the pointlessness and selfishness of people's lives.

Ellis doesn't attempt to write the 'great American novel' wherein our hero faces some personal crisis before finding an inner strength to overcome and resume their place as a normal 'whole' person. Instead we get novels that are more of a glimpse into a portion of the lives of very flawed people - we get no great resolution at the end of the novel. No happy ending. No moral awakening.

And that seems to be exactly the point Ellis' is trying to make. This is real life. Flawed people don't always get 'fixed'. There often is no 'normal' to return to.

Ellis Appearance With Joe McGinniss Jr.

Bret Easton Ellis will be appearing with Joe McGinniss Jr. in support of The Delivery Man at Book Soup in West Hollywood.

Book Soup
8818 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Tuesday - 2/12/2008
7:00 PM

If you get the chance to go, ask Bret about Imperial Bedrooms.

American Psycho Interview

Thanks to Johannes for sending in this Charlie Rose interview with Bret Easton Ellis, Christian Bale and Mary Harron about American Psycho. Its 18+ minutes long, so get comfortable.

Old Articles About Bret

Ran across a reference to this old interview with Bret from back in 1994. It seems EW has put alot of their older articles online finally so there's more nostalgic stuff to read:
American Psychodrama
An American Tragedy
Bad Bret: Less Than Original

Advice For Bret Easton Ellis

The NY Times has an essay up today called Name That Book wherein they present some trivia and let you guess the answers multiple choice style. Question 6 deals with Less Than Zero.

Bret Easton Ellis's mentor, Joe McGinniss, had two pieces of advice after reading the manuscript of Less Than Zero. One was that Ellis should not use his middle name ("You'll sound like such a twit"). The other was, "And you should call your book..."

a. "Home for the Holidays"
b. "Winter Vacation"
c. "Season's Greetings"
d. "Kids Today: Who Can Figure Them?"

The answer is in the extended entry after the jump

... continue reading this entry

Online Chat With BEE

21st Century Lit has a transcript from a recent online chat with some college newspaper editors. Its a pretty long chat, but I did find it interesting that Ellis still says that Glamorama is his favorite novel. Usually, writers fall in love with whatever their most recent work is - especially when they are still trying to sell copies of it.

Bret Explains The Crutches

An explanation of how/why Bret hurt his ankle via Bett's Blog, and how he decides its time to start a new novel:

I talked with Bret Easton Ellis who was walking on crutches. He was talking to a couple and I didn't want to intrude but then I realized this couple was boring him so I got a little pushy and asked him how he gets to the point where he can actually begin a novel. He said it's when you don't care about it as much, like when you don't give a fuck anymore and it's just for fun. He hurt his ankle because the klonopin he'd been taking for years leeches the calcium out of his bones and he tripped down a stair. I guess I'm glad I decided to stop taking Klonopin.

Best Glamorama Inscription Ever

Happiness is : Getting your copy of Glamorama signed by BEE with the inscription fuck Ben Stiller.

German Interview w/ Bret

An interview w/ Ellis from March of 2006. The intro is in German, but the questions and answers (of course) are in English. [Thanks to Maddie for sending in the link.]

Lunar Park Book Tour Troubles?

There are rumors flying that the Lunar Park paperback book tour has been cancelled. I haven't seen anything official yet, and haven't had a chance to follow-up with people who would know, so this is still a rumor at this point to me. And given that I've seen 3 variations of this rumor - exhaustion, broken foot, rehab - I'm not too inclined to believe it.

Hopefully, I'll have better information by this evening.

UPDATE: Page 6 is reporting the book tour cancellation and using the broken foot story as the reason why.

UPDATE #2: Here are a couple of images of Bret from one of his readings in California that wasn't cancelled. Clearly on crutches with a cast on the foot.

pic 1 | pic 2 | pic 3.

The pics come from here and here. You may have to copy/paste the URL of the pictures into your browser rather than clicking on them.

Lunar Park Nominated For World Fantasy Award

Couple of interesting tidbits via the SciFi channel. According to this story, Ellis has re-located back to Los Angeles to work on his previously mentioned 'sequel' to Less Than Zero.

We also find out that Lunar Park has been nominated for a World Fantasy Award. The winner will be announced at their convention in November 2006. Here are all the nominees:

Hal Duncan, Vellum (Macmillan; Del Rey)
Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park (Knopf; Macmilln)
Graham Joyce, The Limits of Enchantment (Gollancz; Atria)
Patricia A. McKillip, Od Magic (Ace)
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (Harvill; Knopf)
Paul Park, A Princess of Roumania (Tor)

It seems very odd to see Ellis listed among that group of authors.

Why The Teletubbies Are Evil

From Gear Magazine in 1999, an article by Ellis on Why The Teletubbies Are Evil (scroll down for the english version).

... continue reading this entry

Ellis Interview, New To Me

Thanks to Mitch in the forum for pointing to this audio interview with Ellis by the BBC from mid 2005. Ellis talks about Lunar Park, American Psycho and a whole lot about Glamorama.

Ellis Writes About Tom Cruise

UPDATE: A PDF of the article can be found here.

Those of you jonesing for some more Ellis writing can go out and pick up the special 1000th issue of Rolling Stone magazine [thanks Matt]. Bret has an article on page 158 about Tom Cruise and his fall from lovable movie star to - well, whatever you'd call him today (egomaniacal wacko works nicely for me).

The overall tone of the article wasn't as negative as I was expecting, but ultimately Bret lays out Cruise with one of the harshest slams he could possible write. I won't spoil it yet. Go pick up the magazine and I'll get a scan up later next week.

Lunar Park Paperback Tour Date

The first date of the Lunar Park paperback tour has been announced at the Vintage website:

9/24/2006
UCLA Armand Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90024
310-443-7038

Ellis Interview

The Morning News has an interview up with Bret by Robert Birnbaum. Robert has chatted with Bret a few times over the past couple of years, so his interview is quite different than most folks because he doesn't have to ask the obvious questions. [Thanks to Tim and Settemod for sending this in]

The only real future project nugget is Bret's response when asked about The Informers:

BEE: And that has a script and looks like it's going to go, yeah.

This would be the Nicholas Jarecki script mentioned last year, so hopefully its still progressing.

Dazed & Confused Interview

The new issue of Dazed & Confused magazine has an interview with Bret in it. Their website has some excerpts from it.

D&C: Is the character of Robby your way of looking at your own childhood and seeing yourself as a father?

BEE: Robby was me, because I've never been a father. In the book, Bret isn't a great father and I was probably thinking about mine when I wrote about him, and thinking about myself as the son, as Robby, witnessing my parents' strained marriage. Ultimately, it's also amusing to me, but in a sad way, that none of that was supposed to be talked about. My impetus for the book was to write about ghouls and monsters. It wasn't supposed to end up being an investigation into my past. I was thinking back on what has really scared me.

Video Interview With Ellis

Here is a 25-minute interview with Ellis by a Danish TV host (its in English, though the introduction is not). Ellis talks about Lunar Park, American Psycho, fame, 9/11 and terrorism in what I found to be a great interview.

One of the things I was happy to hear was Bret saying that he would not apologize for American Psycho. He did say that he was more sympathetic with those that were shocked by the book, but wouldn't go so far as to apologize.

He did again say that he wanted to write a sequel to Less Than Zero as his next novel. He followed that up by saying he thinks its probably a bad idea, but that he's likely to do it anyway.

Thanks to Christian for sending this in.

Lunch With Bret

For those of you with an account at the Financial Times, there is Lunch with the FT article that features Ellis. The first 2 paragraphs are available to all readers.

More Interviews With Bret

Here are a few interviews of Bret that I had previously missed:

Ellis refers to Katie Couric as a bitch.

Interview in the Daily Iowan

Manchester Online interview

Kulture Flash interview

November 02, 2005
LINK

Category: Lunar Park
Comments: 3 (add yours)

Interview and Italian Book Covers

Andrew Billen interviewed Bret for The Times Online and I realized that I never posted it to the site. Included in the interview is the first definitive statements I've seen about who Michael Wade Kaplan was (the book is dedicated to him and Bret's father). As per usual though, the best is saved for last when Bret is asked about the scene in the book where he inherits all his father's suits only to find that the crotches are blood covered from a botched penile implant.

Assure me, I say, that that detail was made up. "No," he (Ellis) says. "That one's true." I blanch. "Sorry," he says, "you wanted to know."

Also, thanks to a comment left by Davidian in another thread, we now know what the Italian cover for Lunar Park looks like (pictured above). Its not bad, but certainly not great.

The Italian cover's for Bret's other books are after the jump.
... continue reading this entry

Ellis Audio Interview @ Five Live

Thanks to Nils for giving me a heads up to the 16 minute audio interview with Bret that has been put up over at the BBC's Five Live site. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet.

European Tour Dates

I don't know all of the European tour dates, but when I do, they'll be put here - and there will be a link to them in box on the top right hand corner of the site.

According to the official Netherlands BEE site, Bret is going to make an appearance in Koningsplein on October 15th at 3PM. [thanks Servaas]

I also notice that the Netherlands has a different book cover for Lunar Park than I've seen anywhere else - the moon is brown instead of grey, more of a harvest moon I guess. They also spell Bret's name wrong in the title and in alot of the head tags.

Here are the remaining foreign book covers from the site. Suprisingly nothing there for The Informers.

Ellis MP3 Interview w/ Bat Segundo

An MP3 interview with Bret Easton Ellis on the Bat Segundo Show. There are a ton of topics covered in the 50+ minute long interview.

Powells.com has also added an interview with Bret.

European Interviews Start

Now that Ellis is kicking off his European book tour, the interviews will start anew - The Independent is first. The most poignant moment in the interview comes when Ellis is asked if he ever wished Less Than Zero had never become a success:

"Ahhhh..." he says. "You know, I don't know why I suddenly feel like crying when you ask me that. I suddenly just feel incredibly emotional, and I suddenly feel... uh... like crying. Why? I don't know."

"Yes," he says quietly. "I often wonder - sometimes - if that book had not been... well, say it hadn't been a success, or hadn't been published at all, what my life would have been like. Would it have been happier? That's the question that haunts me a lot. Would it have been another life without all the complexities and weirdness that this life had?

"I wanted to be a musician," he goes on. "Just writing songs, making music, that always made me happy. And right now, when I'm in this mid-career retrospective and I'm going through some sort of midlife crisis, I am vulnerable to accepting the idea that maybe there was another road that could've been taken. And maybe I'd have ended up happier. But I hope no one ever asks me that again, because I don't want to burst into tears in front of a reporter."

Ellis Interview & Bio

Tom Waters' interview with Bret and his Ellis bio article are both up and available over at Acid Logic.

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!

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."

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.

Open Thread

You've got something you want to discuss? Here's your chance.

More Bookstore Photos

Here are a few more pictures from the bookstore appearance that Bret made back on Feb 9th. These pictures are courtesy of James. Thanks!

There are two more photos after the jump.

... continue reading this entry

Ellis Bookstore Signing Report

I've had a couple of individuals contact me who were able to make it to the bookstore appearance in LA that I mentioned last week. Here is the report back and photos from the first - David.

I attended the Carter Coleman/Bret Easton Ellis book signing last night at Book Soup in West Hollywood.

I've attached four photographs...it was a small, dark room and out of respect to the hosts, I didn't want to use a flash. The pictures are decent, but dark.

Twenty people on metal folding chairs, Lauren Hutton, various friends of Carter Coleman, publishers, a sales clerk with tattoos, several Goths.

Bret Easton Ellis reminds me in person of a younger Bill Murray. Soft, easy to know face and shy, humble personality. Kind, complimentary and generous to fans.

Bret introduced Carter in a short speech. They met years ago when Carter interviewed Bret on the release of RULES OF ATTRACTION or was it LESS THAN ZERO for a New York newspaper. They partied together, became friends. Bret spent "a hundred hours" editing Carter's first book, THE VOLUNTEER and according to Carter, Bret has mentored 6 or 7 other authors, but rarely takes credit for his assistance.

Carter read two chapters from his new book, CAGE'S BEND.

Carter and Bret divided the room, Carter giving autographs at the front of the room, Bret at the back. One gentleman in line had Bret sign a stack of ULTRA-RARE copies of each of his novels, which Bret did with enthusiasm, commenting, "I don't even own these copies...where did you get these?" These signed books will no doubt be on eBay by the time you read this. Bret noted, "They are worth a fortune."

I spoke with Bret for a moment while he signed my copy of GLAMORAMA, he said:

LUNAR PARK will be out in September 2005.

Bret is familiar with www.notanexit.net and has spent time on the website. He said there are some really bad photographs of him on notanexit and he thought the LUNAR PARK manuscripts leaks were in bad taste.

I asked Bret if he minded me posting tonight's photographs on notanexit, and he did not mind.

He lives in the West Los Angeles area and has an apartment in Manhattan.

He likes all of the film adaptations of his books...although Bret didn't seem like the type to bash any of the films, especially in conversation with fans.

That's all I can recall.

Thanks,

David Reeve
davidwilliamreeve@yahoo.com

A big thanks to David for sharing his pictures and experiences with us. I've put his four photos from the event after the jump.
... continue reading this entry

Radar Magazine To Return

According to the NY Post, Radar Magazine is going to make a return this spring, and Bret Easton Ellis will again be a contributing editor. Keep an eye on RadarMagazine.com for the official launch date.

Entertainment Weekly Takes Shot At Ellis

The story is here (subscription required), but thanks to reader Matt K, here is a little snippit of Ellis being lumped into some derogatory comments about Chuck Palahniuk readers:

His fans---many of them young men, unemployed, or making do on minimum wage, tattooed and pierced, with black Sharpie pen on their nails and cut-off Dickies and red laces through their Chuck Taylors---lap up his stories, so thrilled are they to be in their hero's presence. See, they didn't really read before. Maybe some Marvel comics or fantasy novels, maybe some Bret Easton Ellis. But they saw this movie Fight Club and something took hold and suddenly they're buying hardcovers and standing in line for three hours to meet a writer."
- by Karen Varby | 9.26.03 Entertainment Weekly

Beating up on Palahniuk seems to be the fashionable thing to do this summer.

Ellis Quoted In Article About Chip Kidd

Like me before reading this article, you likely don't know who Chip Kidd is though you've seen plenty of his work. Kidd is hailed as the world's greatest book-jacket designer, who has also turned himself into an author in his own right with The Cheese Monkeys, which includes a blurb from Bret Easton Ellis on the jacket sleeve (not in the US edition).

Not only has Chip Kidd altered the face of publishing with his revolutionary book jackets, he has also written a really good debut novel [the bastard]. - Bret Easton Ellis

Ellis is also mentioned in an article in 'The Age' about Australia's censorship laws. I never realized that Australia had such strict laws, but apparently American Psycho was classified as a Category 1 publication - requiring it to be sealed in plastic, restricted to those 18 and over, and was banned outright in Queensland.

Index Magazine Interview Added

I added an 2001 Index Magazine interview with Bret Easton Ellis to the growing list on the left side of this site. Its a bit different than most interviews because it doesn't focus on a particular book, but rather gets into his childhood, his home, his college days, and Ellis also mentions his current project:

I’m working on an autobiographical novel. I wanted to write it between American Psycho and Glamorama, but at that time I didn’t feel ready to deal with my life in such an up-front way. I guess I’m ready now — or at least I’m compelled enough to give it a shot.

With Fame Comes Fear Of Flying

Rush and Molloy have an article in the NY Daily News about celebrities who are white knuckle flyers. Suprisingly, the name of Bret Easton Ellis pops up ... with a quote about his fear as well.

Author Bret Easton Ellis got over his anxiety, but it took a plunge to do it. "When I was a sudden big success with my first novel [Less Than Zero], I got this terrible fear of flying out of nowhere," Ellis said. "My anxiety got so bad I would actually get off the plane on the runway and take the train to L.A."

Peace of mind came when "my subsequent novels did not sell as well. Each year it has gotten easier to fly," he said.

The Black Table Calls Ellis 'Stale'

The Black Table has an interview with Maer Roshan, the editor-in-chief of Radar Magazine (where Ellis writes DVD reviews). There is one question that refers to Bret Easton Ellis' contribution to the mag, and it isn't pleasant:

You are a startup magazine, with the budgetary restraints that inevitably come with that, yet you're still running tried-and-true, easy-cash-for-little-effort, "name" writers like Anthony Haden-Guest, Candace Bushnell and Bret Easton Ellis, who, frankly, was already stale when he was flopping around at Gear three years ago.

I never saw any of Ellis' work from Gear Magazine, but from what I understand, he was a film critic for them. Much like his current role for Radar, this seems to be a horrible waste of his talents. Perhaps Ellis feels stale in magazines because he is so limited by whats being asked of him.

Ellis' Work At Radar Magazine

Just gleaned a bit more information about the Bret Easton Ellis' previously mentioned new writing gig for Radar Magazine. According to Radar Mag's online Table of Contents, Ellis' contribution to the magazine consists of a monthly DVD review column entitled Remote Control.

I'm sure its not just me that'll find that bit of news to be disappointing. Perhaps it was all Ellis wanted to contribute, but writing DVD reviews seems rather a waste of his considerable talents.

Explaining Che Guerava Thru Ellis

Here's something you won't see everyday. A discussion of Che Guerava that involves Ellis' American Psycho.

I suppose that's why he goes insane and kills people (ed-Bateman), because of what a meaningless life he lives, or because he doesn't want to see what a meaningless life he lives. Wow, that involves some interestingly existential anxiety. No wonder Kurt Cobain killed himself - he became a shallow image. Anyway, it's so appropriate that a culture that is generally devoid of meaning reduces Che Guevara and Kurt Cobain and Bob Marley to near-meaningless symbols.