Bret Easton Ellis published his first novel, Less Then Zero, at age 21. The book described the bored, apathic lives of rich Beverly Hills teenagers. 75,000 copies were sold in its first year of publication.

Together with Jay McInerney and Tama Janowitz Ellis formed 'the Brat Pack', young literary rebels who took their subjects from metropolitan subcultures. Back then already Ellis was the most hard-lined of the group.

His second novel, 'The Rules of Attraction' (1987), showed much similarity to Less Then Zero, only in this case the main characters weren't teenagers, but students at a campus in New England.

Excerpts from his next novel, american psycho [book], were prepublished in magazines Time and Spy in 1990, and received crushing comments. Publishers Simon & Schuster were not amused, and put under pressure by their superiors of Paramount Publications they decided not to publish the book. 'This book is a piece of shit', leading man Dick Snyder told the press. Vintage Publishing was less scrupulent, but by the time American Psycho was published, a bootleg version of the book already circulated in New York.

American Psycho became the centre of one of the biggest literary controversies of the 90's. The Writers Union accused Simon & Schuster of censuring for not having published the book, while the Los Angeles branch of the National Organization for Women called for a boycot of any house that would publish it. Ellis himself received several death threats. Critics rejected the book on both literary and moral grounds.

After this Ellis worked for eight years on a new novel, glamorama (1998). Stressed by the American Psycho-controversy he had lost a lot of energy. After the dust had settled, he felt 'incredibly fucked up' and had started drinking and using drugs. In spite of this, he managed to complete a collection of short stories, titled 'The Informers' and after this Glamorama.