Bret Easton Ellis's new book The Shards is simultaneously an ode to the 80s, a reflection on closeted gay teen-dom, a psycho-cultural exploration of fear and dread, and a horror story with imagery you'll wish you never encountered. It has been described as a "fever dream" which is just what it is: a gripping but squirm-inducing ride through the L.A. of what Ellis considers the last days of "empire" -- when he and his rich Wayfare-wearing friends could plausibly feel on top of the world.
If you know Ellis's work, some of that will sound familiar. He is the author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho -- violent stories set against backdrops of high capitalism where you're intentionally left wondering: what even happened there?
The Shards is auto-fiction, so the narrator is Bret Easton Ellis as a student at Buckley -- an expensive private high school. On the surface, high school Bret is a regular cool guy: he hangs out with the quarterback of the football team and the homecoming queen -- the two most popular kids. He is dating a pretty, rich girl who is into horses. They party, spend money, and take a lot of drugs.
Under the surface, Bret is alone and living a lie. He is secretly having sex with two guys in his class and terrified people will find out. His parents are on an extended trip to Europe trying to repair their marriage, and a perverse serial killer is loose in LA, mutilating animals as part of some horrific death ritual. A guy Bret is having sex with dies -- was he actually murdered? As time goes on, Bret desperately clings to the imagined security of his friend group, even as that group is falling apart. Below the surface, he is consumed with fear and dread.
About half way through, I was like "This books is genius." Partly, I found the contrast between surface-Bret and fear-and-dread-Bret so vivid, real and relatable. Not that I am living in fear of a serial killer, obviously, but who hasn't experienced that sense of going through the acceptable social motions even while things are crumbling, enraging, or horrifying?
At one point, desperation-Bret decides he will conquer his fear and dread, and avoid becoming numb, by recommitting to playing the social game, becoming, as he calls it, the "tangible participant" -- the high-schooler who shows up to help with homecoming, who reassures and has sex with his nervous girlfriend, who adopts a surface attitude of entertainment and fun.
When I read that, I happened to be on a trip to an academic conference, to talk about philosophy, while Israel is killing and starving Palestinians, microplastics are in everyone's wombs, and even everyday food is made possible only by a system of exploitation and violation. I thought: will I try to be the "tangible participant"? Introducing myself, asking friendly questions, complaining about the local public transit?
As I made my way through the story, I thought to myself that The Shards is unlike Ellis's other books. While those other books also involve drugs and capitalism and a narrator's numbness in the face of horrific situations, The Shards also shows its narrator's vulnerability. High school Bret is a bit insufferable in his wealthy comfort: the "Nicaraguan maid, Rosa" makes his lunch and he often considers whether to drive the family Mercedes or the family Jaguar. But while he describes himself as "numb" to the outside world, the narrative also shows a high school kid on his own, socially terrified, and not taken seriously. To me, the numbness of Ellis's earlier book narrators lacks Bret's essential vulnerability.
However, these reactions to the first part of the book were incompatible with the plot lines as the story moved toward its inevitable violent conclusions. Maybe you remember how American Psycho leaves the reader unsure whether Bateman committed the murders, someone else committed the murders, or maybe the murders never really even happened. Late in the game, Ellis tries to make that happen here, too -- suddenly casting doubt on the story Bret is telling.
Doubt is fine and I love an unreliable narrator, but to me the way it's done in The Shards doesn't fit with the rest of the book, because the alternative story line requires the "other Bret" to react in completely different ways from the Bret we know from first part. It would work if Bret were only numb. But he's not. He's fear-and-dread Bret. That's what makes the book so good. But fear-and-dread Bret just doesn't fit with the Bret of the alternative narrative final dénouement.
I found that disappointing, but if there is a next Ellis book I will definitely read it. I know that he is a guy with problematic opinions and that his novels can be read as misogynistic and gross. But I keep coming back -- not because I love excess and blood, but because non-moralizing observation of our social situation is so unusual and he does it so well. Are the stories romps through drug-filled excess? Are they indictments of consumerist society? Are they indictments of us for wanting violence as entertainment? Are they about the author's experience? They don't really answer any of those questions. You have to figure it out yourself.
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