Skip to content

No image available
No image available

American Psycho Paperback - 2000

by Bret Easton Ellis


About this book

American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis that follows the life of Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and successful investment banker in New York City during the late 1980s. As Bateman navigates his professional and social life, he also harbors a secret life as a sadistic serial killer. The novel is a commentary on the emptiness and depravity of the materialistic culture of the time and the alienation and disconnection that can result from it. The graphic and disturbing descriptions of Bateman's violent acts serve to highlight the depths of his psychological disturbance and the true horror of his actions.

A film adaptation was released in 2000 starring Christian Bale with Willem Dafoe and Reese Witherspoon in supporting roles. 


Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho is one of the most controversial and talked-about novels of all time. Ellis received 13 death threats before the novel was even published. It was named the 53rd most banned and challenged book from 1990-1999 by the American Library Association.

First Edition Identification

The first American Psycho edition was published in 1991 (Vintage Contemporaries, New York). The original price was $15 US. Vintage Books purchased the rights to the novel after Simon & Schuster withdrew from the project because of "aesthetic differences over what critics had termed its violent and women-hating content."

American Psycho was not published in hardcover in the United States until 2012 when a limited hardcover edition was published by Centipede Press.


Details

  • Title American Psycho
  • Author Bret Easton Ellis
  • Binding Paperback
  • Publisher Pan Macmillan
  • Date May 12, 2000
  • ISBN 9780330484787