I heard some used bookstore workers raving about American Psycho, but they didn’t have it in stock. Neither did the library. So I ended up with Glamorama.
The book would be at least one point better on my scale if it were edited down by 20%. (I skipped over the 2,000-word nudge-by-caress description of a “not the cool kind” ménage a trois.)
The other weakness is in the choice of topic: does the world of male modeling deserve this brilliant a satire?
With those caveats aside, I liked the book. BEE has a Tom Wolfe-ish ability to portray culture and dialog, and he does a masterful job letting the reader see through the point of view of a protagonist obsesses over random dot patterns in a night club that will be filled with people and flashing lights, and lists of celebrities, and the best way to signal peace-out, and only remembers details like every second of a 2,000-word sex scene. He can’t tell the difference between a movie set and a murder in progress. But he’s likeable, and the BEE manages the tone perfectly as it wanders between satire and horror.
A couple years later, I picked up Less than Zero. Less than Zero was BEE’s first book. It’s impressive as a debut. Reading it after Glamorama, though, made me lose some respect for him.
Take Less than Zero¸ change L.A. to New York, let the protagonist grow up six or seven years, add some minor characters and subplots, and add a sense of humor (on the part of the author, not the protagonist), and you have Glamorama.
Both protagonists are immersed in the world of pretty, rich, metrosexual, stupid youngsters whose encyclopedic knowledge of American pop music, celebrities, and designer drugs, and both have self-reflective abilities worthy of case studies by Oliver Sachs.
I stand amazed at BEE’s ability to not only build some sympathy for such male (?) leads, and admire his attempt to provide a whiff of redemption for both characters. I can’t help but wonder, though, if the moral lessons add any worth to the stories. Most likely most readers are not going to identify too much with the protagonists. Those who do, are probably more likely to seem them as role models who had unfortunate accidents. I doubt my tentatively bisexual friend whose current ambition is to become a boytoy would a) read books that contained reviews on the back, or b) understand satire.
He can keep your interest up, and there’s so much brilliance in his writing that I’d like to give him another chance.
I’d gladly buy almost any CD he recommended.
But I no longer have any desire to read American Psycho.
