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

Another whiny prep school story

In the end this is just a memior of Easton's shitty high school experience going to a private school and being a rich kid with a hint of murder thrown in. There is some gore and visceral murders and the story moves along well enough to keep with it but these prep school brats are very hard to feel sorry for. Nothing like American Psycho if that's what you're hoping for. And sooo loooong.

Good. Once You Cut Through All the Name Dropping and Labels

Pretty good. I think the author’s narcissism can really be seen in this work. It was also very clear that he is all about name dropping and label dropping. If you can cut through all of this, it’s a very good story. Maybe that’s the character he is trying to convey. Put I think it distracts and takes away from allowing this to be a great story.

The villain inside of us

Bret was not afraid to show that the more we create a villain out of someone else, we create a villain inside of ourselves. And in that, I find the real tragedy. Bret (the main "character?" lol) is angry, prone to labeling, stigmatized mental illness, when; he himself is dealing with something that he will be stigmatized for then and for the rest of his life. This book is about the threat of beauty in our society. How it can drive the voyeur mad, and the subject even madder. How do we quell jealousy? And how do we level with ourselves? I think we have learned a lot about how to be kind to strangers, but this is, in all its glory and its tragedy, a cautionary tale. Do not subject oneself to hubris. Once you feel like you have someone figured out, you don't. And you probably have yourself less figured out in the process. As my teacher would say, from Othello, be wary of the "Green Eyed Monster of Jealousy."

Vivid gory descriptions of a serial killers work

Returning, though obviously he’s a great writer and a decent narrator I just can’t stomach his descriptions of what I genuinely hope for his sake is a fictional serial killer’s work.

Bret at his finest

Long time BEE fan. This book was excellent. Less graphic than American Psycho but more mesmerizing in other ways. Highly recommend.

Definitely Not For Everyone

The story is graphic in its descriptions of drugs, sex, animal abuse, violence and murder. If you enjoy reading a good slow burn mystery that also includes a lot of what it’s like to be a rich LGBTQ teenager in the closet in 1981 then this book is for you. Gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I thought the book could have used a final edit to tighten it up but I understand Bret has been working on this book for ages so I’m sure every part has meaning to him.

Another great one!

I find it ironic that the first book I read by Ellis was American Psycho. The reason why I bought the book… some group was trying to ban it. Ha! (will people learn that banning something… Especially books, does not work? Clearly not) Anyway, their attempt made me find a great author! And he’s an excellent narrator as well! A voice that is so pleasing to listen to. It makes you crave more! Love, love, love this book!

Loved it!

Ellis is a master of suspense! I couldn’t stop listening! It was worth the wait!

Interesting concept

I liked this whole story at a very specific piece of time. Tbh I still don’t know if it’s entirely fiction but if it was, it was artfully done.

Great Listen

Narration too-notch. Book rivals my favorite, Glamorama which I’d not thought possible. I will definitely be listening to this one again, and probably again in the coming years. Highly recommend.