"This Is Not an Exit"

Set primarily during the late '80s, Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho" is a scathing (and often explicit) satire on the excessess of wealth and its dehumanizing effect on the main character, Patrick Bateman - a Wall Street investor by day and a psychopathic serial killer by night. Ellis' graphic descriptions of violence and sexual sadism (barely even touched on in the film adaptation, starring Christian Bale) caused a lot of controversy when the book was first released. Some book stores even refused to carry it. But many people miss the point. The violence, while gratuitous, is still integral to the story and the message that Ellis is trying to convey. "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here", is a message that Patrick Bateman observes, scrawled in graffiti on the side of a building. This reference to Dante's "Inferno" is important, as the reader is dragged into the downward spiral of Bateman's own personal hell. Now I have to go. "I need to return some video tapes"!

10/10