Retro Reading: Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

In any work of fiction, writers usually add themselves into the story disguised as either the main or minor character (well maybe they use real life situations and then embellish them) in order to make the story more interesting. Here, author Bret Easton Ellis mocks himself in a really good thriller that's probably the best book of his that I've read.

Ellis has moved the story a few years after the turn of the century and begins the story by letting us know what his life was like as someone who achieved fame and fortune at a young age while still attending college and after a lengthy affair/romance/breakup/remaining friends with actress Jayne Dennis (whom he fathered a son with) finally married her and moves into her home in the affluent community of Midland, New York.

The two have agreed not to tell their son, Robby, that he's his father, and her six-year-old daughter, Sarah, welcomes Bret as her "father," even though he lives in Los Angeles.

Beginning on October 30 (Thursday) the couple is hosting a Halloween party for the neighborhood and a few select friends. Bret isn't sure why Jayne wants to have the party on a weeknight, but she tells him that everyone will be having parties and of course trick-or-treating the following night.

They may be experiencing an Indian Summer, but Jayne has been very cold toward him as she's tired of his drug and alcohol abuse along with his lies. Robby isn't too fond of him and even their dog doesn't want anything to do with him.

And while Bret works one day a week teaching at the local college, a few students crash the party, and he's happy that Aimee Light has shown up since he wants to sleep with her and she's been nothing but a tease. He's also troubled when he sees someone at the party dressed as his most famous character, Patrick Bateman.

On Halloween night, Bret notices a white Mercedes slowly drive down their street and tries to get the license plate number but is unsuccessful and he returns home to find a bathing suit out by the jacuzzi and sees a figure weaving in and out of the trees. Among the gravestones in the backyard, he finds one with his deceased father's name on it.

As the weekend progresses, he notices that the furniture keeps rearranging itself and the paint on the house has been peeling at a fast rate.

He agrees to take the kids to the mall to see a movie and while driving, he sees Aimee with a man in the car and obsessively follows her.

Following the movie, Robby tells Bret that he has to go to the other side of the mall and he "accidently" runs into some friends. Bret hears the name of a boy who has gone missing (and later outside a parent/teacher conference Bret's neighbor Nadine Allen tells him that the boys have been corresponding with the other missing boys after they've disappeared). When confronted, Robby has no clue what Bret's talking about.

Later that night, Bret receives a visit from Detective Donald Kimball (another character from American Psycho) and tells him about murders that have been happening around the community. The police have kept it quiet since the victims have the same names as characters from the book and have been murdered in the same fashion.

As the weekend comes to a close, Bret and Jayne have an invitation to their neighbor's dinner party and following dinner, the men go outside to smoke a joint and as Bret looks over at his house, he sees a shadow in the master bedroom.

He calls the babysitter and tells her to get the kids out of the house (he can see them all in their media room) and races home. After grabbing his gun, he runs upstairs and finds nothing, but a figure passes him and takes off in a Mercedes that's been parked outside the house.

No one else saw the car or its occupant take off.

Jayne leaves for Toronto to do some reshoots for a movie that she's working on and while everything seems fine at home, Bret keeps trying to call Aimee Light (especially since he knows that she was murdered at a motel) and in the middle of the night, Robby wakes him up since he heard more gnawing at his bedroom door and thinks that there's someone in the house.

With everything that happens in the book, the murders, the disappearances of the boys and the changing of the house, is Bret responsible for all of this since his arrival into Midland five months earlier? It's quite possible since he's usually in a drug or alcoholic stupor.

At the beginning of the book, I was skeptical of how the story would be since it starts off slow and gradually, you're a part of it. And when you've gotten into it, it's really hard to put down.

Since Ellis is the main character, he revisits his past novels and ties them into this story, obviously with American Psycho being the dominant book. And with the mysterious Clayton, he also weaves his first book, Less Than Zero into the story by reading his manuscript, Minus Numbers, which is a word for word novel of the latter book.

The book does work as a stand-alone, but I think in order to follow past references it's best to have read his previous works, especially American Psycho since some pages are revisited.

Overall, this is a great book, and the ending is rather sad.