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Lunar Park [Paperback]

3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (147 customer reviews)


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Product Details

  • Paperback
  • Publisher: Picador Paperbacks
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0330536338
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330536332
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 7.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (147 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,200,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bret Easton Ellis is the author of five novels and a collection of short stories; his work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He lives in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

I wanted very badly to like this book. D. Smith  |  17 reviewers made a similar statement
The book just went on and on and never really went anywhere. kirb carlisle  |  13 reviewers made a similar statement
Much like his alter-ego character, Mr. Ellis got lost instead of making the effort to be found. Elizabeth A  |  11 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
88 of 101 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Mea Maxima Culpa August 30, 2005
Format:Hardcover
"Lunar Park" is probably Ellis' best, most readable novel since "Less Than Zero." The influences you can spot are many. The writer using his own public persona as the protagonist surely comes from Philip Roth, most notably his classic "Operation Shylock." Ellis provides some pungent satire on contemporary suburbia, so the title probably hearkens back to John Cheever's Bullet Park. (The revelation after his death of Cheever's ambiguous sexuality no doubt also interested Ellis.) But the main thing Ellis does is offer up an homage to Stephen King (Ellis' fictional wife even calls him "Jack Torrance" at one point, who of course is the protagonist of "The Shining", a book to which this novel owes a whole lot.)

The first chapter of "Lunar Park" may be the most clever thing Ellis has ever written. It's an autobiography that agrees with every bad review, every unflattering press article ever written about the guy. He says he wrote all his books under the influence of drugs, quickly and for the money; he's a monster of sexual promiscuity and excess who incidentally sired a son out of wedlock more than 10 years before. He recounts his tortured relationship with his late father (to whom "Lunar Park" is dedicated). You get the feeling here that Ellis is burning down the edifice of his public career, burning all the bridges to his past. It's hilarious and horriying, and must have taken a lot of courage to write.

The first half of "Lunar Park" is mesmerizing (I managed to finish the book in one night.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A surprising progression for Ellis August 22, 2005
By 2Deep
Format:Hardcover
This really surprised me. Despite what some of the major reviews have implied, this book has very little of the sort of druggy debauchery, and none of the sex, that Ellis' earlier books are known for, despite a plot which forces us to travel back through those same books. What it does have - and have in spades - is a sense of underlying dread that, while present in much of his previous writing, has never been brought to life quite this well. It's horror, but a dreamy horror, more like Lovecraft or Poe than Thomas Harris. Another reviewer here likened `Lunar Park' to Stephen King, and while that reviewer meant it as an insult (I think) it's not a bad comparison. This is a book filled with ghouls and hallucinations, but also real-world horrors: alcoholism, self-hatred, and `antagonism', which, as we learn from a well-drawn exorcist towards the end of the novel, can literally turn a man to ash. There is also the horror of children. In `Lunar Park' we are both afraid FOR them, and afraid OF them - one minute they're having nightmares and need protecting, the next minute they're keeping secrets from us and possibly faking their own abductions. The parents in the book all medicate their kids mercilessly, which only serves to underscore the separation between parents and children, between our lives as we would like to see them, and our lives as they really are.

And then there's the writing. It's wonderful. There's a passage on p.55 - "The newspapers kept stroking my fear. New surveys provided awful statistics on just about everything..." - that offers one of the better descriptions of the post-9/11 mindset I've come across. And the last few pages, in which Ellis makes a shaky truce with the ghost of his father, are heartbreaking (my eyes filled up - I'm not kidding).
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Lunar Park is a supposedly true account of terrifying hauntings that occurred in writer Bret Easton Ellis's life over a series of days immediately following Halloween. Ellis's first chapter alone makes the book a worthwhile read--he recounts his entire life, all of his published novels, all of his excesses, and it makes for great reading. Any Ellis fan should definitely read the first chapter to see a glimpse inside a larger-than-life literary figure.

Starting in Chapter 2, the strange occurrences in his small Northeast college town start taking place. Ellis is, for the first time, trying to live a family life with the mother of his eleven-year-old son, as well as her younger daughter by another man. Ellis is haunted my memories of his father, his father's death, and mysterious emails at the time of night when his father died. Then murders ala Patrick Bateman from American Psycho start occurring in the town (but not in the newspapers), and the Ellis household starts to unravel completely. No one believes Ellis's accounts of the hauntings due to his excessive drinking and drug use. Ellis himself casts doubt on many of the occurrences. His children witness some of the hauntings, but prove to be unreliable witnesses when questioned by other grown-ups after the fact.

One shocking aspect of the book has nothing to do with the hauntings, but with Ellis's conflict with his super-children and the way privileged youngsters are raised these days. Ellis is coming off being a hard-partying self-reliant (but not completely functional) man, and it is hard for him to relate to his children, who are on numerous cocktails of medications to perfect their behavior.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Follow Up
Stephen King meets American Psycho in this fantastical, gut wrenching fantasy thriller. For those reasons, it stands out from Ellis' other works, though still maintaining a... Read more
Published 1 day ago by Nicholas Smith
3.0 out of 5 stars Not the Best
Bret Easton Ellis has said this was his finest novel but it's just sentimental. Some of it seems unnecessary but I'm sure the author knows what he's doing. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Dudeman5000
5.0 out of 5 stars Now one of my favorite books
Lunar Park had which I consider to be the mark of a good book: I did not want to stop reading, though I also did not want to get to the end of it. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jay
5.0 out of 5 stars Unique
One of the most introspective and creative novels I've ever read, Bret truly reaches the height of master with this emotionally engaging work
Published 5 months ago by Brett Perkins
4.0 out of 5 stars 80% Suburbia 20% Drug Hallucinations
I'm beginning to regard Ellis as the voice of generation X, but this slice of wealthy family life topped with a scoop of Dean Koontz never quite gels (like "Imperial Bedrooms"... Read more
Published 7 months ago by mr. critic
5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars; aside from which a description eludes me.
This is a tough one to describe, but it's my favorite Ellis novel. Ellis aims this story at the classic horror genre but keeps steering the wagon off the rails into postmodern... Read more
Published 8 months ago by fogcutter
3.0 out of 5 stars Bret Easton Ellis wrestles the Devil in public.
I believe many people don't "get" Ellis. If you don't you may expect more out of this autobiographical novel than you are going to get. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Richard H. Morse
3.0 out of 5 stars A flawed experiment
The blurring of fact and fiction had me for a while, but so much of Lunar Park is just redundant. I found myself skimming a lot in the second half and often saying, aloud,... Read more
Published 9 months ago by lazytime
5.0 out of 5 stars Not your average horror novel
Read more: [...]

The Basics: I've been slowly working my way through Ellis' life works, and I'm still going strong. Read more
Published 10 months ago by C.J. Listro
4.0 out of 5 stars I am left haunted by this book
I am a big fan of Mr. Ellis's work and I just finished this book this morning. I am left with a haunted feeling and actually cried during the last few pages. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Jessi Spray
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