Patrick Bateman would be working in Silicon Valley with Mark Zuckerberg now, says American Psycho author
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Your support makes all the difference.Twenty-five years after its publication, author Bret Easton Ellis has revealed where he believes American Psycho's Patrick Bateman would be today.
Bateman peaked the narcissistic, wealth obsession of the '80s; yuppie culture ballooned to its inevitable, grotesque conclusion. Invest banker-turned-serial killer, he stalked Wall Street by day, New York nightclubs by night; ruthless and engulfed by the consumerist lifestyle in every part of his soul.
So where would he find himself in 2016? Ellis, writing in Town and Country, revealed a vision of Bateman "working in Silicon Valley, living in Cupertino with excursions into San Francisco or down to Big Sur to the Post Ranch Inn and palling around with Zuckerberg and dining at the French Laundry, or lunching with Reed Hastings at Manresa in Los Gatos, wearing a Yeezy hoodie and teasing girls on Tinder."
Ellis' piece reflects on the latest iteration of his cult character, a new musical; transitioning to Broadway after its sold-out London run, which saw Doctor Who's Matt Smith in the role. The author admitted he initially found the idea, "farcical"; though he was later convinced by the creative team behind the project.
He also writes extensively on his personal memories of the character, describing him as; "moneyed, beautifully attired, impossibly groomed and handsome, morally bankrupt, totally isolated and filled with rage, a gorgeously dressed and empty thing, a young and directionless mannequin hoping that someone, anyone, will save him from himself."
However, he clarifies Bateman was never intended to represent a generation, but came from an entirely personal place; that he "in many ways was the worst fantasy of myself, the nightmare me, someone I loathed but also found in his helpless floundering sympathetic as often as not."
The novel was, of course, famously adapted by Mary Harron in 2000 with Christian Bale in the Bateman role.
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