Sex, Drugs, and Serial Killers
The high school drama unfolding in Bret Easton Ellis’s latest novel, The Shards (2023), translated into Dutch by Robbert-Jan Henkes, goes far beyond the teenage squabbles the average reader might recall from their youth. Though it may seem nostalgic at first, this book is not for the fainthearted who expect a sweet coming-of-age story or hope to lose themselves in the magical world of 1980s Hollywood. The cliché of the sentimental narrator reflecting on their innocent teenage years is nowhere to be found. Instead, the book is steeped in the holy trinity that has defined Ellis’s work since his debut: sex, drugs, and serial killers.
At first glance, the Los Angeles depicted in The Shards seems like a sunny and carefree backdrop for the senior year of seventeen-year-old protagonist Bret Ellis, based on the author himself. The Shining is playing at the Village Theater, The Psychedelic Furs are performing at Whisky a Go Go, and at the exorbitantly expensive private school that Bret attends everyone who matters is wearing Wayfarers. Cruising through the city, Bret and his friends push the boundaries of the freedom that comes with a driver’s license and a flashy car, which they see as their gateway to adulthood. The atmosphere is reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s recently published memoir Cinema Speculation (2022), in which the director describes his youth in LA as a time of absent parents and absolute independence. And just like in a Tarantino film, violence is a must in any Ellis book as well.
The shattered self
Time and again, grim reality interrupts the story, as tragedy seems to distort Bret’s privileged youth. A football game is preceded by a memorial for the Iranian hostage crisis, an assassination attempt on President Reagan fails, and a successful one claims the life of John Lennon. In Ellis’s harsh world, violence abounds, and genuine emotions are scarce. His characters appear nihilistic, caught in superficial relationships with little regard for the world around them—Bret sleeps with his girlfriend’s father and his friend Jeff satisfies an older man in exchange for cocaine. Even more romantic relationships, such as Bret’s secret affair with the athletic Ryan, turn out to be one-sided. The students are numbed by their excessive surroundings, to the point where the heinous acts of a serial killer known as the “Trawler” barely register. Only Bret seems to take an interest, and he quickly connects the string of murders to his mysterious new classmate, Robert Mallory.
Although Ellis likely never had a serial killer as a classmate, this book, much like the ones that came before, is semi-autobiographical. If you look beyond the horror and absurdism, it becomes clear that his works are a reflection of himself. A direct line can be drawn from Less than Zero (1985), his debut novel about teenagers in Los Angeles, to The Shards, which functions as a kind of retrospective elaboration on the former. Moreover, familiar characters frequently resurface and the protagonist is almost always the same age as the author. Ellis worked on The Rules of Attraction (1987), for instance, during his time at Bennington College, which also figures in the book, and he was the same age as the infamous Patrick Bateman when he wrote American Psycho (1991).
But The Shards is an exception to the rule. This time, the narrator shares the same age as the then-57-year-old author. It’s a story Ellis long wanted to write but never dared to, as he admitted during a lecture at Border Kitchen earlier this year. So why not an autobiography or a memoir? Despite the cliché “write what you know,” openly drawing inspiration from one's own life still seems to carry a taboo. Ellis chooses to embrace this taboo and his signature blend of fiction and non-fiction results in a gripping and deceptive novel. The contrast between the fallible memories of the older narrator and the naive perspective of the teenage character adds an extra layer of unreliability. This combination creates a dizzying dynamic where nothing is certain and where you constantly have to question whether Ellis is telling the truth. Is the Trawler targeting Bret? Is Bret the Trawler? Or is the Trawler merely a figment of his imagination? No one can be trusted, leaving it up to the increasingly paranoid reader to uncover the truth.
Faded glory
Contrasted by the grime and gore, the narrator offers a nostalgic lens that is very much in vogue. Through a selection of iconic locations, songs, and films, Ellis paints such a vivid picture of the 1980s that I, born after the millennium, almost seem to remember. It’s a period Bret describes as "inspired by new wave and punk, emotionlessness, and discontent. A wholesale rejection of 1970s kitsch." And while the book overflows with this timeless teen angst, it’s also surprisingly melancholic—just not in the traditional sense. The older narrator reflects on his high school years with detachment, and the younger Bret seems indifferent to friendships or the relationship with his parents, whom he rarely sees. Instead, it is the sights and sounds of the decade that evoke melancholy. The novel feels like a road trip, the reader gazing out the window as a mixtape plays in the background and old Los Angeles whizzes past.
This glorification of the past, often stemming from a longing for so-called simpler times, isn’t just reserved for Boomers; even Zoomers enjoy the pseudo-nostalgia of popular series like Stranger Things or WandaVision. Nostalgia offers an escape from harsh existence, but in The Shards, those sweet memories are sharply contrasted with an eerie reality. According to the narrator, everything was better back then. Ignore the serial killers, the assaults, the suicide attempts. Focus instead on the unblemished bodies, hot sex, and boundless pleasure. Ellis’s nostalgia may be naive, but it’s naive in a deeply human way.
Good vibes only
Ellis is a master when it comes to conjuring an atmosphere. Despite the bleak storyline, the world he builds in The Shards is colorful and captivating. As the narrator explains when asked about Less Than Zero, the debut novel he shares with Ellis: “[I] wanted to convey a mood, nothing more, to immerse the reader in a certain atmosphere made up of carefully chosen elements.” While this trick works for shorter books like Less Than Zero or its sequel Imperial Bedrooms (2010), plot becomes indispensable when you’re guiding the reader through a tome of nearly six hundred pages. This isn’t to say that The Shards has no plot, only that it’s stretched so thin that it can turn almost transparent. Shallow conversations and aesthetic observations fill the vast space. And while this is enjoyable at first, after a hundred pages it begins to feel repetitive, resulting in a cinematic yet drawn-out reading experience.
The novel reads almost like a script, complete with jump scares and a soundtrack, where the long-winded descriptions might be better seen than read. Perhaps Ellis was already thinking about an adaptation to the silver screen or influenced by his parallel life as a screenwriter. The script-like austerity seeps through in the concise sentences without poetic embellishments. While this minimalist style conveys a certain degree of teen angst in Ellis’s other works, it misses the mark in the Dutch translation by Robert-Jan Henkes. Outdated word choices and awkward sentence structures undermine the teenage nonchalance of the protagonists. A world of unruly youths is an interesting premise, but when they talk like old men, it falls a bit flat.
No grand climax
There is no real resolution or explanation for the bizarre events that unfold in The Shards. Is the serial killer a metaphor? This question lingered in my mind throughout the novel. While there is no definitive answer, I interpret the almost supernatural elements as an expression of Bret's struggles with his identity. A hidden identity because, just like Ellis at the time, Bret is stuck in the closet. While his classmates grow into themselves, Bret creates an alter ego and drifts further and further away. The Trawler embodies both the tension between his true identity and the artificial role he adopts, as well as the increasing emptiness he experiences. Perhaps the shards reflect Bret, shattered under the pressure of wanting to be himself while having to play a part. Ultimately, it’s up to the reader to piece these shards together.
