Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and works on Wall Street; he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to a head-on collision with America'e(tm)s greatest dream 'e" and its worst nightmare 'e" American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront. 'e~ American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel . The novelist'e(tm)s function is to keep a running tag on the progress of the culture; and he'e(tm)s done it brilliantly . A seminal book'e(tm) Fay Weldon, Washington Post 'e~The first novel to come along in years that takes on deep and Dostoyevskian themes . Ellis is showing older authors where the hands have come to on the clock'e(tm) Norman Mailer, Vanity Fair 'e~Serious, clever and shatteringly effective . For its savagely coherent picture of a society lethally addicted to blandness, it should be judged by the highest standards'e(tm) Sunday Times.