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Where does sanity begin and end? Can moving to the suburbs bring you sanity, or lure you into insanity? In Bret Easton Ellis's brilliant new novel, LUNAR PARK --- his first in six years --- these ideas surface through the life of a character who surprisingly has the same name as the author. Is Ellis trying to tell the reader that this story is autobiographical, or is it some elaborate coincidence?
Ellis's previous novels are disturbing, but they usually escape being categorized as horror. LUNAR PARK, despite its classification as literature, absolutely earns itself a place among the top works of horror. Interestingly, this is Ellis's least graphic and gruesome work. The highly symbolic gore and explicit sex that fills his other novels is sparse here. Its place is filled with intricate descriptions of the daily activities of a suburban family and the aesthetics of Ellis's home --- activities and settings that for most families would seem monotonous.
The horror gradually builds throughout LUNAR PARK and takes place over twelve days. Bret Easton Ellis, a young and highly successful writer and author of five novels --- several of which brought him not only fame at a young age but also incredibly harsh criticism for insidious violence and sex --- has reconnected with old girlfriend/superstar/actress Jayne Dennis, the mother of his only son. Dennis also has a daughter, but from another relationship. Ellis joins the family and their mysteriously intuitive dog in a paradigmatic Suburbia where he hopes to leave drugs behind and focus on a new novel that has a purposefully lascivious and tawdry name. He also will perfunctorily teach one class at a nearby liberal arts college that highly resembles his alma mater.
But Ellis's plans for peace are hindered by a reoccurring figure from his past. In addition, it seems that an obsessed fan and student at the college where Ellis now teaches is carrying out the murders from AMERICAN PSYCHO in nearby towns and trying to contact Bret and ruin his life.
There is a supernatural element in this novel --- unique to Ellis's work --- that climaxes in the last seventy pages and leaves the reader completely transfixed and hooked. Glimpses of unnatural activity such as strange lights, ambiguous figures, peeling paint, vanishing children and sinister dolls continuously appear throughout the book, and all relate to that recalcitrant figure from the past. Further, Ellis, in a schizophrenic manner, develops a subconscious voice that makes itself very clear and calls itself The Writer. The reader follows Ellis through his dwindling cognizance and watches him teeter on a very thin line, not knowing which way he will turn, or fall. Ellis may regain a normal life and be a father to his son, forgetting about the innumerable missing boys that show up in the daily paper, or he may crumble into drugs, alcohol, money and delusion, never to be seen again. It all depends on a reconciliation with his past.
LUNAR PARK, and especially its opening autobiographical format, has any serious Ellis fan --- like myself --- immediately hooked and impossibly trying to discern what is real from what is not. The novel remains compelling throughout with its magnificent description and seemingly banal dialogue for which Ellis is famous. This book is not only for the diehard fan. If this is your first Ellis novel, it will leave you craving more in a desperate attempt to fully understand what AMERICAN PSYCHO and LESS THAN ZERO are really about and why they brought this author so much fame and criticism. Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote the novel of his generation as a junior in college, has done it again.
--- Reviewed by Scott Handwerker
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