Bret Easton Ellis’s most famous novel is American Psycho (1991), a satire told from the perspective of an affectless psychopath named Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street investor by day and a hedonistic serial killer by night. The novel was controversial for its extremely graphic content, which caused its original publisher, Simon & Schuster, to drop the book. Vintage, an imprint of Random House, then picked up the publishing rights.
American Psycho sparked outcry from some feminist groups but also gained defenders such as British writer Fay Weldon. Ellis and his editor received death threats. The year it was published, Ellis told The New York Times, “I had no idea the novel would provoke the reception it’s gotten, and I still don’t quite get it. But then I was not trying to add members to my fan club.” The book became a cult classic, and in 2000 it was adapted into an equally provocative movie starring Christian Bale as Bateman.