The Shards

I'm confused and conflicted about this one.
Aside from being a considerably long book, it's hazy, redundant, morally reprehensible in every which way and strangely anticlimactic. Yet, despite all this, it's good. Very good.

What I enjoyed the most, I was delighted to discover, was something the author himself ended up mentioning in the brief conclusive chapter: his incredible ability to give a believable account of what being a teenager feels like, pristine and unadulterated as if forty years hadn't gone by.

There are many things in this book that I did not enjoy as I was reading it, but whichever way I try to look at it, they all end up becoming essential elements to this daunting tale of manic unraveling.

I have to say, though, as someone who has yet to visit California, I found myself often scoffing in impatience at the constant mentioning of roads and boroughs of L.A.
I was reminded of the SNL ‘Californians' sketch, where the cast pokes fun at Angelenos because they only seem to talk about traffic. Because of this, I feel like I sometimes took the book less seriously than it wanted to be.

Horrifying depiction of coming of age wherein the characters have the ostensible freedom of adulthood, but the power and credibility of children. Our neurotic, ineffectual protagonist is being thrust into the violence, cruelty, and indifference of the real world, and the paranoia, fear, and betrayal that accompanies this leap infects you as the reader. The portrayal of this transition is the real brilliance of this book, I think. It captures the illusion of adolescent choice and will, but ultimately the events and conflicts that mature you happen regardless. As Bret realizes, you just have to sit back and take it as a “tangible participant.” It’s a sort of baptism.

The mystery and narration of this book is its greatest strength, as it will keep you guessing and you will slowly grow just as paranoid as Bret. And even though I initially felt somewhat disappointed by the ambiguous ending, it has stuck with me. I can’t help but think that there is an answer, that if I go back and read between the lines I can figure it out. Maybe there is a clue with the posters? Maybe it is in the “alterations”? While I doubt there really is an answer, I think my desperation for one speaks to the strength of BEE’s writing.

A common criticism of this book is its length and its meandering. And while I don’t think either of these criticisms can be outright denied, I was not particularly bothered by either. Ellis’ style of run-ons and innocuous references to pop culture and geography takes some getting used to, but I think it has its charm. At its best it masterfully controls the story’s pace, and at its worst it’s somewhat tedious. And I think the length is more a benefit than a downside, as the time spent with Bret really got me to inhabit his headspace.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent book. My only real gripe is that the ending didn’t tie up the mystery as much as I wanted it to, but again, there’s pros and cons to that. It’s also worth mentioning that there are parts of this book that I found genuinely terrifying in unique ways. The build-up to the scene with Terry and Bret in the bungalow made my stomach drop, and the scene when Bret is in his Aunt’s house in the desert gave me a nightmare lol. But I loved this book, it’s not quite as profound and well-crafted as American Psycho but I thoroughly enjoyed it in every aspect.

I... really liked this?

A sort of inverted HOUSE OF MIRTH about being a closeted teen in LA in 1981, with the horrors and paranoia and secrets of the teenage years placed in a fun house mirror by the looming violence of a serial killer, which serves as both a narrative obsession and as an abstract force of nature that no teen could possibly understand.

The book started a little slow for me, but I found my way into it, as that start established the rhythm of the story, which I started to enjoy, and I was absolutely pulled in during the middle third, and by the final third, I could not put it down. As an admirer of David Fincher's film ZODIAC, I appreciate the book's ambiguities very much and was sort of driven pleasurably crazy by how the book's use of narration gave adult author “Bret” the chance to examine things and parse out the story while teen “Bret” and his friends were all deeply inarticulate and unable to say what they meant in almost every circumstance.

So, this worked for me– Teen “Bret”'s paranoia and naive moral code coupled with a complete lack of self-awareness felt INCREDIBLY accurate to me, and while there were a couple of moments that I found Ellis to be making a point that felt “off”, especially the moments when adult “Bret”remembers his teenage self through Ellis' own contemporary political lens (being sexually manipulated under the guise of a screenplay meeting and then shrugging it off, his off-hand comment about being lectured about antisemitism in CHARIOTS OF FIRE– both moments felt outside the character of the fictional “Brets”), the vast majority of the book does an incredible job of using this fractured relationship between Ellis and his “Brets” as a propulsive force to keep the reader engaged. I also felt for teen Bret, whose struggle between his true self as a gay kid and the fictional self he was constructing for his peers was a key emotional component in making the stakes of the book feel actually, tangibly (see what I did there?) tragic.

As I see it, the titular “Shards” of the book are these fractured layers of the “Brets” and Ellis, and this beautifully choreographed dance between fiction and autofiction had a huge impact on the book as a “horror” or “crime” story for me– the narrative back and forth, with adult “Bret” laying out clues in the form of a first person recollection and teen “Bret” too horny and closeted and drugged up and at war with who he really was to f***ing remember to act on the clues or put the pieces together and the actual author Ellis playing with this dynamic to drive me forward as a reader– this all contributed to the sense of dread which ended up REALLY working for me in a pleasurable way. Ellis can truly deliver the creeps, and the propulsive energy of the book's escalating paranoia and violence in the final third was thrilling– I ended up picking the book up each day like I was a voyeur, I wanted to see what was next and I just could not stop reading.

I am sure your mileage will vary, but I have to say, I'm off to watch Icehouse and Ultravox videos on YouTube and let my Gen X brain enjoy the afterglow of a super fun read...