The Literature Book

313

See also: Lolita 260–61 ■ A Clockwork Orange 289 ■ Crash 332

T

he explicit treatment of

taboo topics such as

rape, incest, pedophilia,

drugs, and violence characterizes

trangressive fiction, a genre that

came to the fore in the 1990s.

Writers such as Charles Bukowski,

William S. Burroughs, J. G. Ballard,

and Kathy Acker had paved the

way in previous decades with

novels that variously described

weird sexual acts, body mutilation,

drug use, and extreme violence.

To transgress is to go beyond

established moral boundaries, and

American Psycho, a black comedy

by American author Bret Easton

Ellis (1964–), does this with relish.

Its scenes of violence, particularly

against women, have led to calls

for the book to be banned.

Psychotic dream

Its true transgression, however, lies

perhaps in the suggestion that the

pursuit of the American dream

is akin to a mental disorder. The

book is set in Manhattan during

the 1980s Wall Street boom and the

narrator, Patrick Bateman, is both

a yuppie and a homicidal sociopath.

He inhabits a morally bankrupt,

drug-dependent world that revolves

around designer clothes and

exclusive clubs and restaurants; he

expounds his love of a rock band in

the same tone as he ponders how

to dispose of a corpse. Forced to

view the world through his eyes,

the reader is urged to question

a society in which everything

has become commodified. ■

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE

I FELT LETHAL ON THE

VERGE OF FRENZY

AMERICAN PSYCHO (1991), BRET EASTON ELLIS

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Transgressive fiction

BEFORE

1973 The protagonists of

English writer J. G. Ballard’s

controversial novel Crash

are a group of car-crash

victims who are sexually

aroused by car accidents.

1984 Foreshadowing later

transgressive fiction, American

writer Jay McInerney’s satire

Bright Lights, Big City places

the reader as the central

character in a hollow world.

AFTER

1992 Brutal and shocking,

Irish writer Patrick McCabe’s

The Butcher Boy plunges

the reader into the violent

fantasy world of schoolboy

Francie Brady.

1996 Tyler Durden, the

antihero in American

writer Chuck Palahniuk’s

transgressive Fight Club, is an

anarchic, masochistic nihilist.

I have all the characteristics

of a human being: blood,

flesh, skin, hair; but not

a single, clear, identifiable

emotion, except for greed

and disgust.

American Psycho

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