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Cover Story: Fashion Models and B-class celebrities turned International Terrorists!

翱谤鈥︹赌︹赌︹赌� Wait! Do these plastic explosives match my Armani? Call the camera crew. We have to go back to wardrobe! Reset the timer. And鈥�.where鈥檚 my Zanex?
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OMG. ummmm鈥︹€�..*yawn?

This isn鈥檛 World Weekly News, but a novel that didn鈥檛 know where or how exactly to end. And I鈥檓 shocked really, because I adore Bret Easton Ellis. I also secretly enjoy World Weekly News, which could arguably, at times, be a better read than this novel. Maybe he could have used Batboy or those giant army ants that eat giant housewives in rural Texas. Something I could connect to, something I could try to care about. Still, I think if Bret Easton Ellis were in need of a kidney and we matched 鈥� I鈥檇 be down.

I kept hoping the main character, Victor Ward/Victor Johnson (potentially two separate people) would just die already. But this hope occurred for the first time for me on, like, page鈥︹€� 50? or so. I trudged on in hopes that he/they鈥檇 become less vacuous or maybe get impaled or strangled or blown up or attacked with a chain-saw 谩 la Patrick Bateman (鈥淎merican Psycho鈥�) style. It would have been nice to read about Victor鈥檚 entrails being spun onto a wheel, the way they did in the middle ages when they鈥檇 burn trapped rats to dig into people鈥檚 stomachs. Rats and wheels, it鈥檚 torture genius. It proves that human ingenuity is linear, I think. Later on, we made light bulbs and 100 calorie packs. Rats and wheels, this is how much I disliked Victor Whatever.

Then, I鈥檓 wondering, am I supposed to hate Victor Ward/Johnson? He鈥檚 a man so obviously disconnected from reality 鈥� like in the way that Michael Jackson is disconnected from reality. Except Victor Ward/Johnson isn鈥檛 so far gone that he sleeps in Tupperware just yet. And his nose doesn鈥檛 fall off 鈥� just yet. He just thinks a camera crew is following him everywhere sprinkling confetti all about. This is maybe his way to cope with being involved in gory terrorist activities. (I think.) I can鈥檛, however, figure out the confetti metaphor. Can someone fill me in? Lost! But I don鈥檛 care enough to be found, really. It鈥檚 all [insert random celebrity names here], Cerruiti, Huey Lewis and the News, Brooks Brothers, Cristal, blah, blah, blah. Did I floss today? I鈥檓 tired and bored. I鈥檓 down for the count. And so 鈥� the book gets put on the nightstand for another night or another week until primetime TV is bad and I鈥檝e had a glass of wine.

The plot begins half-way through the novel, just at about the time you鈥檙e finally ready to put it down and give up. Thank God, a point to this empty madness. But is it? Really? I鈥檓 thinking鈥︹€︹€�.not so much, no. The over-materialist banality was eating at my soul for the first 250 pages. I didn鈥檛 recover when things became more interesting. Victor鈥檚 father wanted him sent away because he was running for Senate (or was it a Presidential nomination?). His quasi-gay unsuccessful college drop-out son was not good for campaigning or something like that. Victor Ward/Johnson is lured by a person potentially hired by his father, a man named Palakon. Palakon is somehow associated with the French embassy, and then not. It鈥檚 not so clear as the lines between reality and 鈥淲orld Victor鈥� become blurred. Palakon, et al. decide to take advantage of the situation they have with Victor in order to transport some uber-modern super-secret plastic explosives en route to Europe.

After this: lots of drugs and death disguised as movies sets- disguised as real death- disguised as film-making. Interrogations. Love triangles. A graphic m茅nage 谩 trios that spans a full chapter. Confusion about the motive behind the violence because the narrator is unreliable. More death. *yawn

Not your best work Mr. Ellis, but still call me if you need a kidney.