SOURCE: "The Beast in the Jungle, the Figure in the Carpet," in Shopping in Space, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1992, pp. 85-129.

In the following essay, Young appraises American Psycho as a postmodern text.

The publication of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho in 1991 was replete with ironies. It seemed as if the world had decided to add to the book all the old-fashioned fictional qualities that it so conspicuously lacked: melodrama, plot, characterization, irony, hubris. The story of the book—its publication history, its author, its controversial aspects, its fashionability—had to stand in for the lack of story in the book which no one seemed to bother to read in any detail. Bret Easton Ellis started making notes for his third novel, which he intended to be the monologue of a serial killer, whilst still working on the proofs of The Rules of Attraction. The publishing house Simon and...