The Informers
By Bret Easton Ellis
(Vintage, Paperback, 9780679743248, 240pp.)
Publication Date: August 1, 1995
Other Editions of This Title: Compact Disc (May 2009), Compact Disc (May 2009), MP3 CD (May 2009), MP3 CD (May 2009), Hardcover (July 1994)
Categories: General
 |     |
In this seductive and chillingly nihilistic novel, Bret Easton Ellis, the author of American Psycho, returns to Los Angeles, the city whose moral badlands he portrayed unforgettably in Less Than Zero. This time is the early eighties. The characters go to the same schools and eat at the same restaurants. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. They have sex with the same boys and girls and buy from the same dealers. In short, they are connected in the only way people can be in that city.
Dirk sees his best friend killed in a desert car wreck, then rifles through his pockets for a last joint before the ambulance comes. Cheryl, a wannabe newscaster, chides her future stepdaughter, “You're tan but you don't look happy.” Jamie is a clubland carnivore with a taste for human blood. As rendered by Ellis, their interactions compose a chilling, fascinating, and outrageous descent into the abyss beneath L.A.'s gorgeous surfaces.
Bret Easton Ellis is the author of four previous novels and a collection of stories, which have been translated into twenty-seven languages. He divides his time between Los Angeles and New York City.
“The Informers skillfully accomplishes its goal of depicting a modern moral wasteland. . . arguably Ellis's best.”
—The Boston Globe
“A post-modern Winesburg, Ohio. . . . Ellis's cleverness is on full display. . . . He has a keen ear for dialogue, a sharp eye for the moral bankruptcy of modern life, and a vivid imagination.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“The Informers is spare, austere, elegantly designed, telling in detail, coolly ferocious, sardonic in its humor; every vestige of authorial sentiment is expunged. . . . Truly unsettling.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Bret Easton Ellis. . . is an extremely traditional and very serious American novelist. He is the model of literary filial piety, counting among his parents Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, and Joan Didion.”
—The Washington Post
 |
The Privileges Jonathan Dee Random House |
 |
The Unnamed Joshua Ferris Reagan Arthur Books |
 |
Committed Elizabeth Gilbert Viking Adult |
 |
The Crossing Places Elly Griffiths Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
