The drugs, boredom, pop songs, depression, and occasional explosions of violence go on for 600 pages, and while Ellis keeps things moving and The Shards is entertaining, one can’t help but feel that Ellis could have set his sights on more contemporary stuff and done so without all the meta self-awareness and cool wayfarer and synth-pop distance.
After all, Ellis is in a perfect position to do a satire of modern liberalism. Just as American Psycho was a satire of what Ellis perceived as the materialism, vanity, and capitalistic brutality of 1980s yuppie culture, a new work by Ellis could have dismantled the lecturing hysteria and self-importance of the modern Left.
Furthermore, Ellis has always used horror tropes in his work, and the Left’s defense of nightmares, like withholding care from a baby left alive after a botched abortion, is right out of Stephen King, who was a major influence on Ellis.
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