Madrid (EFE) a novel that rescues his adolescent self and his obsessions in a disturbing Los Angeles at the beginning of the 80s.
Published in Spanish by Random House, the novel is 50 or 60 percent autobiographical, the writer (Los Angeles, 1964) assured at a press conference in Madrid, in which he explained that time has been the trigger for this book that, in reality, he began to write in 1982 and that, after 40 years, he resumed in 2022.
A writer since he was a child, literature was for Easton Ellis a way of escaping from the pain of his family, from an alcoholic father, from the divorce of his parents, explained the author, who recalled how in 1981 he began to “get completely out of control” and He began to invent everything: “He was very convincing as a liar,” he assured.
Since he broke into literature at the age of 21 with “Less Than Zero”, Bret Easton Ellis became one of the most provocative voices in American literature, and especially successful with “American Psycho”, which tells the story of a murderer. serially hidden behind the guise of a music- and fashion-obsessed Wall Street banker in late 1980s New York.
Terror and eroticism in his latest novel
In “Los destrozos” the author mixes terror and eroticism with the disorientation of adolescence.
That is why he assures that the novel is a kind of “love letter” to the people who were part of his life and a way of explaining who he was.
“I was never the same after 1981 – there was never a recovery period, and now I can pinpoint the moment when I was last happy, or more specifically the moment when the last vestiges of happiness, even warmth, were present. , before spiraling into terror and paranoia and beginning to understand how the adult world actually operated as opposed to my adolescent fantasies,” she writes.
It is the first work in which he writes about the past and from now on he says that he does not regret anything and that the only advice he would give to his then self is that “it was not necessary to take so much cocaine” to write “American Psycho”. .
“You have to live your life with its mistakes and controversies,” stressed the writer who has insisted that he does not believe in repentance since if he did, he would regret everything.
He assures that it was a pleasure to write this novel: “I had never had such a good time”, stressed the author, for whom writing in general is the best feeling he knows.
Easton Ellis on free speech
Considered the chronicler of generation X in the United States, Easton Ellis assures that they grew up in a climate of freedom of expression that currently does not exist: “there was not an army of people saying what you cannot say.”
“We had total creative freedom,” insisted Easton Ellis, who explains how currently there is “rage” and an attempt to “cut people from the same pattern.”
The American author maintains that a novel has never been considered to “touch the provoke key” but that if someone feels offended “then don’t read it.”
And he disagrees with the possibility of not writing certain things in case they offend someone’s sensitivity: “if he is offended, let him be offended; humor has to do with injustice ”, he stressed.
HBO has acquired the rights to the novel “Los Destrozos” to make a television adaptation that will be directed by Luca Guadagnino (“Call me by your name”) and Easton Ellis himself in script and executive production tasks, in such a way that way that he even considers directing it, he said.
Because Easton Ellis has always wanted to be a filmmaker and that, he explains, has been noticed in his novels that are very cinematographic.
