The Shards

A Novel

By: Bret Easton Ellis

Narrated by: 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

Critic reviews

“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

Buy a ticket take the ride, weirdos!

Love BEE and I fully trust him to take me on a thrilling ride, I would let him drive me anywhere after this. Meaning, I know I’m going to be uncomfortable, disgusted and shocked by him. BUT I also know I am in the hands of an author who delivers a reward for every risk I’m willing to take with him.

Grew up on “less than zero” and this is a LTZ fan’s dream.

The Shards is unapologetic, brilliant, creative, weird, horrifying, tragic. I felt like I stepped into a masterful surrealist painting and got to wander around and pull on these beautiful narrative threads that might lead to a place that made some sense and might not. But as with poetry I am able to feel the things the character feels and experience his confusion, curiosity, terror, lust and loneliness. And I was so dang entertained.

No, I can’t think of many people I’d recommend this to. I probably do not have enough friends who are interesting enough! All of you who are fans, hello kindred spirits, you gorgeous oddballs, you artists, you mental mammoths!

There are no parents in B.E.E.’s world…

…or at least, no adults who function as guiding spirits to the rich, blank, and privileged Gen X kids who populate this book. Though Ellis insists it’s a novel, it reads—-and this is most of the book’s conceit—like a memoir. Whether or not Ellis was raped as a teen by Terry Schaefer, whether he challenged and defied and lusted after the young serial killer Robert Mallory, whether he compiled the clues that pointed inexorably to the murders of his friends, Ellis has made a puzzle for his readers that defies storytelling convention.

But there is no doubt that he is describing his teenage self as he really was in 1981, along with the hard fact that he was left utterly alone to face horror. All but abandoned by his parents, snubbed and ostracized by his friends, coolly dumped by his several gay lovers, and most perplexingly, dismissed and almost shunned by school authorities, he is a shockingly poor little rich boy. But of course, Ellis is so stoned most of the time that he might not notice any of this. His privileges and his spendable cash, while his parents loll in Greece for months in 1981 and leave him in the care of a housekeeper, seem completely unlimited. But where to apply either our envy, our revulsion, or our sympathy? To Brett Easton Ellis, or to the fictional character who is Brett Easton Ellis?

There’s no need for me to recap the plot. What struck me most is how Ellis continues to sift that handful of 80’s years in which Generation X was labeled “alienated.” He remains committed to unfeeling and to endlessly describing those unfeelings, where the novelists who debuted alongside him in that time have wisely left that anesthetized period behind. Ellis insists tirelessly that the early 80’s aloofness he experienced was relevant, is relevant, though what that passage might mean to readers 40 years later remains obscure. Most of us have turned that page, gently or not, and moved on.

One of the best novels I’ve ever read

If you love suspense and horror elements + a moving emotional main character arc and are not put off by sex and gore, you will love this. Not to mention how beautifully written and realistic each scene feels, the author invited us into his world in a way that many have not afforded to us (it’s a semiautobiographical novel read flawlessly by Bret Easton Ellis himself). This is a gem. Go read that sh*t.

Not for everyone

This book is intense and at times frustrating. However, I was fascinated and engaged the entire time.

Had to stop

Unfortunately didn’t keep me interested. Stopped with more then 10 hours remaining. Had a hard time staying engaged.

I really don’t have much to say

But I did finish the book, on audible. Very long listen, good character development, maybe a little too detail oriented, I don’t need to know the name of every band and what song they played. Definitely too much gay sex, I had to fast forward through those parts but like I said, I did finish the 20 hour listen because I got hooked by the good character development.
Midway through I figured out how it was going to end and then let BEE take me there.

Richly written and detailed

Shattered is written as only Britt Ellis can write it’s a rich, lush novel. For those that complain about the large amount of sexual energy or description in the novel. This writing style is most typical of Britt, Ellis, and how his characters often relate to their surroundings again fantastic book, highly recommended, good psychological thriller.My

A lot to unpack

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Very explicit, in terms of both the sex and the murders. But as the author and I are about the same age, I enjoyed it for the memories of the time. He was speaking of, and whether or not he was going to reveal the killer. definitely a book to listen to with a headset on

Good

Nothing. Good book. Good good. 1 w e r d f f d s d d. D d d

One of the best I’ve experienced in a while

Coming into this book with no background knowledge of the plot, I was completely enamored by the end. Bret did a wonderful job in his narrations and his emphasis and manner in which he spoke only added to the story rather than distract. I usually prefer reading books rather than listen but this was not the case with the Shards. I had to go down a Reddit rabbit hole to see what other people’s thoughts were and that’s how you know it was good.

Be prepared to be filled with dread at some points, paranoid and completely immersed when you get this book. Also there are some points that made me laugh!