The book that could not be published.
November 1990 to April 2000: a chronology of the cancellation, the boycott and the reversal.
It is the most documented episode of his career, and the one most often told wrong. The novel was not banned: it was dropped by its publisher four months before publication, rescued two days later, condemned in the press three months before anyone could read it, and rehabilitated nine years later by a film. Ellis was paid twice for it.
Simon & Schuster contracts the novel for a March 1991 publication, with an advance reported at three hundred thousand dollars.
Presse d'époque, reprise par The New Republic
Excerpts circulate. Inside the house, staff object; the art director refuses to design a cover; Penguin gives up the paperback rights.
The New Republic
Simon & Schuster cancels the book four months before publication, citing aesthetic differences. Ellis keeps the advance.
The Washington Post, « Publisher Cancels Lurid Novel », 15 novembre 1990
Two days later Vintage Books picks it up, on Sonny Mehta's decision, for a reported three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Ellis is paid twice for the same book.
Presse d'époque, reprise par The New Republic
Three months before anyone can read it, Roger Rosenblatt demolishes the novel in the New York Times and approves its cancellation: the journal Dorian Gray would have written had he been a high school sophomore.
Roger Rosenblatt, The New York Times, 16 décembre 1990
Vintage publishes the novel as a paperback original, 399 pages.
Notice bibliographique de l'édition
The National Organization for Women calls for a boycott. Gloria Steinem opposes the book for its portrayal of violence against women. Ellis receives death threats and hate mail.
Presse d'époque
Henry Bean gives the novel what Ellis has called the only good review in the national press. The Los Angeles Times runs three pages of subscription cancellations in response.
Henry Bean, Los Angeles Times, 17 mars 1991
The book is restricted rather than banned: R18 and sold shrink-wrapped in Australia, R18 in New Zealand, classified harmful to minors in Germany from 1995 to 2000. In the United States it is the fifty-third most challenged book of the decade.
American Library Association, palmarès 1990-1999
Mary Harron's film reads the novel as comedy. The book that could not be published becomes the one everyone quotes, and has been read that way ever since.
Réception du film, avril 2000
Three cards, one afternoon.
Before any murder, the novel stops for a page while four men compare business cards. It is the book in miniature: men who cannot tell each other apart, arguing over paper and type. Everything on this site is a typographic placeholder, so the specimens below are set the same way. The words are the novel’s. The paper is not a reproduction.
the lettering is something called Silian Rail
Eggshell with Romalian type
Raised lettering, pale nimbus white
American Psycho, the card scene. The three descriptions are quoted from the scanned text, not from a quotation site.