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Lunar Park |  | Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Publisher: Picador
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £5.97
as of 7/9/2010 16:39 PDT details
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Seller: Amazon.co.uk
Rating:  41 reviews
Sales Rank: 7567
Media: Paperback
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0330440012
EAN: 9780330440011
Publication Date: June 16, 2006
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Product Description
Imagine becoming a bestselling novelist while still in college, and almost immediately famous and wealthy, then seeing your insufferable father reduced to a bag of ashes in a safety-deposit box, even as your celebrity drowns in a sea of vilification, booze and drugs.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
 Hilarious, dark gothic masterpiece March 24, 2009
Dave Gilmour's cat (on Dave Gilmour's boat)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is an absolutely stunning novel: a laugh-out-loud social satire mixed with a surreal and genuinely scary horror story. Its ambiguity is entirely intentional. As with the Glamorama reviews, I'm amazed how many readers here have completely missed the point. When Ellis creates 'shallow' characters they are MEANT to be shallow. When he creates bizarre story shifts that defy logic, they are MEANT to do this. These are not failings of the author, but examples of his incredible command of language, his huge imagination, his devastatingly effective sense of humour, his bottomless capacity for parodying the worlds he scrutinises. Lunar Park was never meant to be a 'straight' novel with a standard plotline, as should be obvious from page 1. Go along with its playful mischief, its inspired gothic surrealism and its extremely dark humour and you will be in for a real treat. This is an all-time classic: one of the best 20 novels ever written. I'm off to read it again now.
Confusing ending but uplifting November 2, 2005
M. Clark (London, UK)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
A really quite bizarre book that starts with an autobiographical account of BEE's difficult childhood, dramatic early success as an author, slide into drugs/celebrity etc and then moves to the (fictional and supernatural) present. The principal aim seems to be to exorcise the demons of his relationship with his alcoholic, abusive father. The ending - while somewhat confusing and unclear (how much is real, how much delusional, possibly drug-induced) - is uplifting and the last two pages contain some truly beautiful writing and imagery. I am no BEE acolyte (I was appalled by American Psycho and read this new book out of curiosity following a Robert Elms radio interview with the now-mature sounding author) but I wholeheartedly disagree with the one-star reviewer. In my opinion, this book is intelligent, emotional, thought-provoking and very well-written. Recommended.
Amazing! September 10, 2006
J. A. Osbourn (Bishops Stortford, Herts)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Lunar Park is a supposed autobiographic book written by the author of classic and majorly controversial books such as American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction and Less Than Zero. It is a tale of the glamorous, greedy and hedonistic lifestyle of a highly successful and famous author and the troubles he faces leaving that lifestyle for mundane suburbia. Throughout the book drugs, cocaine especially, is a major part of Easton Ellis' life, one which brings the greatest joys and relief's but also creates the greatest struggles and reveals the darkest sides of the author.
After leaving his troubled and abusive father for a college place at a specialist writing college, Easton Ellis begins to pursue his career as a successful author. At the age of twenty he finds fame and fortune with the success of his debut book, Less Than Zero. This is when Easton Ellis addictive lifestyle begins to take full swing, describing the wealth, the parties, the cocaine and the sex life involving famous models and Hollywood actresses.
His life takes a major turn when he meets his future wife and famous actress Jayne Dennis. He becomes clean from drink and drugs; they marry and move to suburban Connecticut, where life is not as simple and innocent as it seems. As soon as they arrive the married dream begins to fall apart; Easton Ellis relapses, young boys from the neighbourhood begin to disappear, his daughters `Terby' Doll seems to be alive and after Easton Ellis. But most unbelievably his most infamous creation, Patrick Bateman, the American Psycho has apparently come to life, stalking the neighbourhood causing mayhem through his grotesque copycat American Psycho murders . The question that brings such trouble to the reader is; is this purely a drug induced hallucination, is it purely a lie or is it in fact the truth?
Postmodern masterpiece January 14, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a fantastic novel from a writer quite clearly at the peak of his powers. It is a subtle and poignant depiction of one man's realisation that he is, despite the lavish trappings of celebrity, a failure as a father and as a person. Ellis uses the postmodern concern of parody over pastiche to critique the vacant nature of contemporary culture and society which, while disparaging of our times, also serves to emphasise what really is important in our personal lives.
Haunting November 2, 2006
Barca 82 (UK)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I have just finished this and it was the first time I'd read an Ellis novel. It was engaging and the writing is bright and sharp from the start despite initially exploring the cliched theme of 'how hard it can be to cope with fame, fortune, drugs sex and booze'. In Ellis' hands this is treated intelligently and as a result the main character (Ellis) is easy to empathise with.
Family reationships, particularly the ones Ellis has with his wife and son are expertly drawn. The themes of family, of loss and regret run through the book as Ellis struggles to eschew his formerly hedonistic lifestyle to make life with a family in suburbia work. There is also a supernatural angle to the book though we are kept guessing as to the weight that can be afforded to this from Ellis' state of mind. The story keeps you turning the pages with a killer apparently on the loose and boys going missing in the authors' neighbourhood. What starts out as a fairly cynical detached view of the world through Ellis' eyes gradually softens and the tale unfolds until in the latter part of the book you are drawn into the relationship of Ellis and his dead father. The ending is touching and poignant - an unforgettable sequence of memories where Ellis shows us brief glimpses from a life long since lost to him. The book is about the ties that bind families together, and the love and pain that we feel as a result.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
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