The Shards
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Published by: Swift Press
Pages: 600
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★
Published by: Swift Press
Pages: 600
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★
Seventeen-year-old Brett 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 part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equalled 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 with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence.
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, Bret spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably towards a collision…
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, Bret spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably towards a collision…
My thoughts:
The Shards follows a fictional narrator named Bret and his group of friends at a prep school in Los Angeles during the year of 1981, a year where the city is haunted by a serial killer on the loose known as The Trawler. As Bret becomes increasingly preoccupied with The Trawler and his crimes, a new student, Robert Mallory, joins the school and works his way into Bret’s friendship group, piquing Bret’s suspicion and causing his obsession with both the Trawler and Robert Mallory to begin to merge.
Reading the first few chapters, I excitedly wondered if Bret Easton Ellis was on to something magical here. The novel’s imagery is lush and gorgeous, and I was keen to delve into the emotional realm of the protagonist.
Setting is everything in this story: taking place in ultra-privileged LA in the time of new wave. The hair is perfect, and the freeways are empty as Bret and friends take cool, cinematic drives.
There are numerous scenes of bloodshed in the narrative that are straight out of ‘slasher’ movies. The frequency and weirdness of the violence is so extreme that the reader knows that this is satire, pure and simple. Bret Easton Ellis succeeds in capturing the essence of a place and moment in time, but he often loses sight of the big picture.
This is very much a novel you need to invest in, and there were times that I found it hard work. The Shards is almost 600 pages long, and the narration loops back on itself. In my opinion it’s just far too long. The strength of the plot does not support its length and the book feels overwhelmingly overwritten. For example, using the same repetitive imagery and language to describe the bodies of the men around him, including detailed descriptions of everything worn by his peers, and providing us with every single street name he drives on. I feel it really could have been a shorter read and still achieved the same psychedelic effect. And for all the narrative investment it demands, the novel’s climax felt underwhelming.
Overall reaction:
The Shards follows a fictional narrator named Bret and his group of friends at a prep school in Los Angeles during the year of 1981, a year where the city is haunted by a serial killer on the loose known as The Trawler. As Bret becomes increasingly preoccupied with The Trawler and his crimes, a new student, Robert Mallory, joins the school and works his way into Bret’s friendship group, piquing Bret’s suspicion and causing his obsession with both the Trawler and Robert Mallory to begin to merge.
Reading the first few chapters, I excitedly wondered if Bret Easton Ellis was on to something magical here. The novel’s imagery is lush and gorgeous, and I was keen to delve into the emotional realm of the protagonist.
Setting is everything in this story: taking place in ultra-privileged LA in the time of new wave. The hair is perfect, and the freeways are empty as Bret and friends take cool, cinematic drives.
There are numerous scenes of bloodshed in the narrative that are straight out of ‘slasher’ movies. The frequency and weirdness of the violence is so extreme that the reader knows that this is satire, pure and simple. Bret Easton Ellis succeeds in capturing the essence of a place and moment in time, but he often loses sight of the big picture.
This is very much a novel you need to invest in, and there were times that I found it hard work. The Shards is almost 600 pages long, and the narration loops back on itself. In my opinion it’s just far too long. The strength of the plot does not support its length and the book feels overwhelmingly overwritten. For example, using the same repetitive imagery and language to describe the bodies of the men around him, including detailed descriptions of everything worn by his peers, and providing us with every single street name he drives on. I feel it really could have been a shorter read and still achieved the same psychedelic effect. And for all the narrative investment it demands, the novel’s climax felt underwhelming.
Overall reaction:
