The Shards

A Novel

De: Bret Easton Ellis

Narrado por: Bret Easton Ellis

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A novel of sensational literary and psychological suspense from the best-selling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho that tracks a group of privileged high school friends in a vibrantly fictionalized 1980s Los Angeles as a serial killer strikes across the city

“A thrilling page turner from Ellis, who revisits the world that made him a literary star with a stylish scary new story that doesn't disappoint.” –Town & Country

Bret Easton Ellis’s masterful new novel is a story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city.

Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them—and Bret in particular—with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends—or his own mind—to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.

Set against the intensely vivid and nostalgic backdrop of pre-Less Than Zero L.A., The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret’s life at seventeen—sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage. Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting, and often darkly funny, The Shards is Ellis at his inimitable best.

©2023 Bret Easton Ellis (P)2023 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Ellis is a true literary craftsman, and the novel’s imagery is lush and gorgeous . . . there is an exciting new vulnerability in Ellis’s latest book, inviting the reader more profoundly into the emotional realm of the protagonist than he has with his previous characters.” —The New York Times Book Review

“It’s been a dozen years since Bret Easton Ellis published a novel. And his latest, The Shards . . . is worth the wait. Hermetic, paranoid, sleek, dark—and with brief explosions of the sex and violence that have characterized Ellis’ oeuvre—The Shards is a stark reminder that the American Psycho author is a genre unto himself.” —NPR

“Cleverly done . . . eerie . . . The Shards establishes a tricky two-step of sincerity and unreliability.” —The Wall Street Journal

Excellent!

It is hard to sustain interest for 23 hours but this book manages it beautifully. I read this in about two days which gives an idea of how engrossing it was.I’m usually not a fan of authors narrating their own books but, again, he manages that too. I don’t get creeped out easily but this slow burn made my spine tingle and sent me double checking that my doors were locked.

Narration

it took me quite a while to get used to the author's rambling narration but once I did I really got into the story line. I thought the book was quite wordy and could have been edited way back, but who knows if the novel would have had the same effect!

Writer's gotta write

I didn't enjoy much about this book, but I liked it. Everything is unreliable: narrators, memories, our own realities. It doesn't mean that all is relative, there is a shared reality we are part of, but we are always renegotiating the way we inhabit it. Some art can activate the parts of your consciousness that are meant to keep tabs on this. This book belongs in that category.

Yes

Yes you should-Once you start- you won’t be able to sleep until Bret stops speaking

Great narration

I like the way this guy writes and the narration was great. The inflection in Bret’s voice reminds me of Christian Bale’s narration in parts of American Psycho, Makes me think that Ellis actually coached Bale on how he envisioned Bateman would speak or Bale took it upon himself to speak like Bret when playing Bateman. - this book went by too fast

Wow….my first Bret Easton Ellis indulgence

It’s rare that I finish a book and can’t really operate for 30 mins because I’m still trying to process it. It just fucked with me in the best way. Ellis is a bold and fearless writer and storyteller. The incessant jerking off and descriptive mental undressings of his friends (and trysts with his girlfriend’s father) felt overdone at some point and didn’t add anything to the story—until you realize that they do. Not just a quintessential depiction of a horny teenager, but you’re getting inside the head of a seemingly innocent adolescent that might just be the psychopath he’s so worried about protecting everyone from. But, like I said, still processing it. All in all, this is a brilliant piece of writing … something you keep visible on your bookshelf to remind you there is greatness out there. Consider me hooked.

If you know the author's books, you'll love it!

If you don't, then listen at your own risk. I love Bret Easton Ellis and I devoured (probably wrong word) all 23 hours and 4 minutes of this book. Just a wonderfully written novel and, because it touches a bit on Bret's own history (or what we think is his history re; writing of Less than Zero and American Psycho and Glamorama), it's even familiar in a sense. Graphic and dark and totally satisfying. Not for the weak of heart, but then, his books never are. And, totally cool that it was narrated by the author. I was so rapt by the ending I had to listen to the last couple hours immediately after finishing the book.

Captivating / Anxiety Inducing

Beautifully written and performed, but proceed with caution if you’re unable to walk away from a great story even if it triggers anxiety.

I'll never regard Bret Easton Ellis the same way after reading The Shards.

I haven't read every novel by BEE, but The Shards is the best BEE novel I've ever read. Completely riveting and chilling. Not for kids.
I've published four books, but I'll never write anything as good as The Shards.

Brilliant and Fun

BEE may be the best living author today. Layers of meaning and satire and metaphors throughout - alongside a cheeky secret sincerity. This book functions on several levels at once. Incredibly fun to listen to a playlist of all the music he mentions while you read and/or listen to the book. Pitch perfect narration by the author in his tone of numbness from the “tangible participant.” Interesting to compare the feeling and memories of this time and place to today’s world.