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Lunar Park


by Bret Easton Ellis
Glamorama II: Electric-Bugaboo


As a fan of Ellis’ earlier work, I was very disappointed when Glamorama finally made its appearance after the long drought. Where American Psycho could support its length, Glamorama seemed to sink under the weight of too few ideas and too much prose. Enter Lunar Park.

Lunar Park most resembles a style and substance literary retread of Glamorama. It’s like a bad film sequel where instead of fighting the bad guy, the hero fights the bad guy’s brother. The book opens with the quote “You do an awfully good impression of yourself” and then Ellis astonishes the reader by doing just that.

The twilight zone world of the narrator exactly mirrors the conspiracy within a conspiracy of Glamorama. This time the group of Wizards-Behind-the-Curtain are psycho-sexual-magical forces instead of fashion model-political-terrorist forces. Don’t get me wrong, though – there is no real difference. As you turn the last page of either novel, it’s clear that the powers of control are unknowable, unreasonable, and ultimately nonsensical.

When I reached the halfway point, I was pretty bored. Still, I held out the vain hope that Ellis was taking previous work and refining it. Throughout the book, the narrator is terrorized by a demon toy named Terby (a supernaturally enhanced Furby “emoto-tronic” toy popular in the 1990s). The toy’s name turns out to be a mind-numbingly silly anagram. Unfortunately, Lunar Park represents the same type of insignificance.