The Informers - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Bret Easton Ellis (Paperback)

About the Book

This powerful and poignant novel of L.A., from the author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho, depicts a generation's overwhelming dissatisfaction with the way things are, and its insistence on remaining as detached and isolated as possible.

Book Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero comes a nihilistic novel set in the early eighties that portrays a chilling descent into the abyss beneath L.A.'s gorgeous surfaces. - "Skillfully accomplishes its goal of depicting a modern moral wasteland.... Arguably Ellis's best." --The Boston Globe

The basis of the major motion picture starring Billy Bob Thornton, Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke, The Informers is a seductive and chillingly nihilistic novel, in which Bret Easton Ellis, returns to Los Angeles, the city whose moral badlands he portrayed so unforgettably in Less Than Zero.

This time is the early eighties. The characters go to the same schools and eat at the same restaurants. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. They have sex with the same boys and girls and buy from the same dealers. In short, they are connected in the only way people can be in that city.

Dirk sees his best friend killed in a desert car wreck, then rifles through his pockets for a last joint before the ambulance comes. Cheryl, a wannabe newscaster, chides her future stepdaughter, "You're tan but you don't look happy." Jamie is a clubland carnivore with a taste for human blood.

Review Quotes

"The Informers skillfully accomplishes its goal of depicting a modern moral wasteland. . . arguably Ellis's best." --The Boston Globe

"A post-modern Winesburg, Ohio. . . . Ellis's cleverness is on full display. . . . He has a keen ear for dialogue, a sharp eye for the moral bankruptcy of modern life, and a vivid imagination." --San Francisco Chronicle

"The Informers is spare, austere, elegantly designed, telling in detail, coolly ferocious, sardonic in its humor; every vestige of authorial sentiment is expunged. . . . Truly unsettling." --The New York Times Book Review

"Bret Easton Ellis. . . is an extremely traditional and very serious American novelist. He is the model of literary filial piety, counting among his parents Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, and Joan Didion." --The Washington Post

About the Author

BRET EASTON ELLIS is the author of Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, The Informers, Glamorama, Lunar Park, and Imperial Bedrooms. His works have been translated into twenty-seven languages. Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, and The Informers have all been made into films. He lives in Los Angeles.