Lunar Park Author:Bret Easton Ellis Imagine becoming a bestselling novelist, and almost immediately famous and wealthy, while still in college, and before long seeing your insufferable father reduced to a bag of ashes in a safety-deposit box, while after American Psycho your celebrity drowns in a sea of vilification, booze, and drugs. Then imagine having a second chance ten years ... more »later, as the Bret Easton Ellis of this remarkable novel is given, with a wife, children, and suburban sobriety -- only to watch this new life shatter beyond recognition in a matter of days.
At a fateful Halloween party he glimpses a disturbing (fictional) character driving a car identical to his late father's, his stepdaughter's doll violently "malfunctions," and their house undergoes bizarre transformations both within and without. Connecting these aberrations to graver events -- a series of grotesque murders that no longer seem random and the epidemic disappearance of boys his son?s age -- Ellis struggles to defend his family against this escalating menace even as his wife, their therapists, and the police insist that his apprehensions are rooted instead in substance abuse and egomania.
Lunar Park confounds one expectation after another, passing through comedy and mounting horror, both psychological and supernatural, toward an astonishing resolution--about love and loss, fathers and sons -- in what is surely the most powerfully original and deeply moving novel of an extraordinary career.« less
I hated this story from Brett Easton Ellis of Less Than Zero and American Psycho fame. He is trying to be Stephen King and he fails. He should have stayed with the Brat Packers in his cocaine fueled rage and left the horror world alone. The only truly scary thing about this book was that I saw it only multiple "best of" lists and bought it.
this author leaves everything up to the reader in this book, nothing is "resolved" nicely for us so dont expect it. What you will get is EXCELLENT writing. Its a sad sad book about a man and his terrible relationship with his father which comes back to "haunt" him with his own son. you wont forget this book, thats for sure.
Part supernatural horror (a la Stephen King), part family drama, part pseudo-memoir with multiple 1st person accounts from the same person (I know, confusing). The main character is a fictionalized version of the actual author. The story is told from the point his point of view and the "author" within him. Characters in the book who haunt him are characters from actual books the real author has written (American Psycho). This is twisted, strange, and sometimes hard to follow, but also intriguing and heartfelt. Be warned, not pretty, and at times downright disgusting and violent. Also, just for good measure, some social commentary re: suburbia and celebrity and the likelihood of a future dystopia.
