Bret Easton Ellis's Controversial Fiction: Writing Between High and Low Culture

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Description

Both literary author and celebrity, Bret Easton Ellis represents a type of contemporary writer who draws from both high and the low culture, using popular culture references, styles and subject matters in a literary fiction that goes beyond mere entertainment. His fiction, arousing the interest of the academia, mass media and general public, has fuelled heated controversy over his work. This controversy has often prevented serious analysis of his fiction, and this book is the first monograph to fill in this gap by offering a comprehensive textual and contextual analysis of his most important works up to the latest novel Imperial Bedrooms. Offering a study of the reception of each novel, the influence of popular, mass and consumer culture in them, and the analysis of their literary style, it takes into account the controversies surrounding the novels and the changes produced in the shifty terrain of the literary marketplace. It offers anyone studying contemporary American fiction a thorough and unique analysis of Ellis's work and his own place in the literary and cultural panorama.

Reviews

A balanced, thoughtful and fair-minded study of the critical reception of Ellis's work, exploring his status as serious contemporary writer, alongside his reputation as a sensationalist (and misogynist) trouble-maker. Baelo-Allu's examination of the shallow surfaces and schizophrenic self-awareness of his work is subtle, informed and extremely well-judged - this is unquestionably the most thorough and wide-ranging study of Ellis's oeuvre to date.' -- Alan Bilton, Lecturer in American Literature and Film, Swansea University, UK
Winner of the 2011 Enrique Garca Diez book award for literary research - Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies

Author Bio

Sonia Baelo-Allu is a lecturer at the Department of English and German Philology at the University of Zaragoza, Spain, where she teaches American Literature. She has published widely on Bret Easton Ellis's fiction. Her research centres on popular culture, trauma studies and contemporary American fiction.