Lunar Park
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 Cover of Lunar Park |
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| Author | Bret Easton Ellis |
|---|---|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publisher | Knopf |
| Released | August 16, 2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-375-41291-3 |
Lunar Park is a combined semi-autobiographical novelization of the life of Bret Easton Ellis and is a ghost story. It was released by Knopf on August 16, 2005. It is notable for being the first book written by Ellis to use past tense narrative.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The novel begins with an inflated and parodic but reasonably accurate portrayal of Ellis' early fame. It details incidents (probably exaggerated) of his wild drug use and his publicly humiliating book tours to promote Glamorama . The novel dissolves into fiction as Ellis describes a liaison with an actress named Jayne Dennis, whom he later marries, and with whom he conceives an (initially) illegitimate child. From this point the fictional Ellis' life reflects the real Ellis' only in some descriptions of the past and possibly in his general sentiments.
Ellis and Jayne move to Midland, a (fictional) suburban town outside New York City, which they no longer consider safe due to pervasive terrorist acts in a post-9/11 America. Fictional incidents include suicide bombings in Wal-Marts and a dirty bomb detonated in Florida[1][2]. Strange incidents start happening on a Halloween night, some involving Sarah's (Ellis's fictional stepdaughter) Terby doll.
As the novel progresses, the haunting of Ellis' McMansion and questions over the death of his father become increasingly prominent. With his history of drug use and alcoholism, his wife, children, and housekeeper are understandably skeptical of his claims that the house is haunted.
Jayne Dennis is a fictional character created by Ellis, but aside from the novel itself, Ellis has taken several other steps to create verisimilitude for her character. Although she does have a website[3], the site consists entirely of obviously doctored images and a fictional filmography. Ellis links to her site from his, but it is suspected he created Dennis' site himself; some authentication pages even request the user register at the official Lunar Park site. There is no profile for an actress of this name on either the Internet Movie Database or eonline.com. It is noted in a disclaimer on the stills page that the site is a work of fiction.
[edit] Jacket Blurb
The inside of the jacket reads:
Imagine becoming a best-selling novelist, and almost immediately famous and wealthy, while still in college, and before long seeing your insufferable father reduced to a bag of ashes in a safety-deposit box, while after American Psycho your celebrity drowns in a sea of vilification, booze, and drugs. Then imagine having a second chance ten years later, as the Bret Easton Ellis of this remarkable novel is given, with a wife, children, and suburban sobriety — only to watch this new life shatter beyond recognition in a matter of days. At a fateful Halloween party he glimpses a disturbing (fictional) character driving a car identical to his late father’s, his stepdaughter’s doll violently “malfunctions”, and their house undergoes bizarre transformations both within and without. Connecting these aberrations to graver events — a series of grotesque murders that no longer seem random and the epidemic disappearance of boys his son’s age — Ellis struggles to defend his family against this escalating menace even as his wife, their therapists, and the police insist that his apprehensions are rooted instead in substance abuse and egomania. Lunar Park confounds one expectation after another, passing through comedy and mounting horror, both psychological and supernatural, toward an astonishing resolution — about love and loss, fathers and sons — in what is surely the most powerfully original and deeply moving novel of an extraordinary career.
[edit] Characters
Several of the characters are fictionalized portrayals of real people. Most notable among these is Ellis himself, but others include friend and fellow author Jay McInerney and Ellis' late father.
Bret Easton Ellis - novelist who rose to fame while still at college with his debut novel Less Than Zero; now lives in the suburbs with old flame Jayne Dennis.
Jayne Dennis - film star, married to Bret Easton Ellis.
Robby - Bret and Jayne's eleven-year-old son.
Sarah - Jayne's six-year-old daughter.
Robert Ellis - Bret's father, deceased.
Patrick Bateman - Serial killer from American Psycho.
Aimee Light - A graduate student writing her thesis on Bret.
Jay McInerney - Easton's contemporary and friend; author of "Bright Lights Big City"
[edit] Trivia
- Ellis told the Manchester Evening News that the Terby "is based on a Furby but also there was this bird-like doll that my older sister had and I wrote a short story about it when I was 7 or 8. She used to scare me with it, I’d go to my bedroom and get into bed and it’d be there, she’d hide it there just to scare me. Or I’d be walking up the stairs and she’d chase me with it. And I think that’s what I was channelling and it fitted in to all the other things that I was haunted by.”[4]
- Ellis told SCI FI Wire the book was an homage to Stephen King and comic books, and that he finished writing it in summer 2004. It is also a nominee for the World Fantasy Awards[5].
- The book carries an epigraph from Hamlet 1.v.98. This connects with the theme of haunting by a father as well as the names in the book (e.g. Elsinore, Osric).
- As part of the fun, Ellis portrays himself as less literate than one presumes he is. 'He' misuses 'disinterestedly' twice, thinks 'iminently' means 'eminently', and claims never to have heard of the word 'mewling'.
- Porcupine Tree's album Fear of a Blank Planet is heavily based on Lunar Park (Porcupine Tree website).
