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[5.10.05] [Andrew Gallix]
THE AMERICAN PSYCHO IS BACK
 Bret Easton Ellis will appear at the Royal Festival Hall (13-16 0ctober) (Queen Elizabeth Hall) in London on 10 October (7.30pm) after his gig at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on 8 October (6.30pm). Ellis may also appear at the French literary festival organised by Les Inrocks, an influential weekly magazine. The festival also includes, inter alia, Salman Rushdie, Michel Houellebecq, Francois Weyergans, Robert McLiam Wilson and others.
The author of Lunar Park was interviewed in yesterday's Times. On, er, sexual pliability: "Having a family forces maturity on most people. In this respect, the Lunar Park Bret, who is married and has a son, has an advantage over his creator. I wonder if there is a part of Ellis that wishes he had a family. 'Yes, there is. But I don't think it is going to happen. The windows of opportunities that I had in order for that to happen closed abruptly, maybe permanently.' Because he came out as gay? 'No, I am talking about when I was with women and that (having children) was a possibility. The whole gay man thing is very interesting. When I hear that question being asked I think, 'Are they talking about me? Am I the gay man?' He does not think of himself as a gay? 'Look, I think in the populus at large -- and this is why I really don't like to talk about it -- most people are wired to react solely to one sex or the other sex. I am not saying I am not more one way or the other, but there are people who have a lot of confusion and doubt and are, depending on their mood, very pliable. Believe me, I have discussed this quite often. It has been a big part of my therapy over the years".
On Jay McInerney's cameo in Lunar Park: "They had dinner the other night. Was McInerney not too thrilled with his fictional cameo in Lunar Park? 'We have to have some more talks about it. He hid from me that he was very upset about this book. I had to find out from his girlfriend.' Did that upset him? 'It did. It made me think Jay takes himself too seriously and that pissed me off because Jay does take himself too seriously. And I told him this. And he is very insecure. And I told him that. And this is on the record. So I got angry with him.' Was Jay angry because he was portrayed taking drugs? 'Well, he didn't like those asides the Bret character lays on the Jay character about being lost in celebrity and being a social climber and being Jerry Lewis. But he said, 'I've two kids. I don't need them reading this book and seeing their dad scoring coke off the hood of a Porsche and skinny dipping in a pool.' And I said, 'Is that the worst you have ever done? What are they going to think when they read Bright Lights, Big City?'."
Steve Almond disses Lunar Park in The Boston Globe.
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