6. The Informers (1994)
Ellis has denied writing a short story since 1986, but a lot of critics refer to The Informers as a collection of short stories. They are not short stories - they are interconnected stories with recurring characters to link them together. There is, as per usual in an Ellis novel, immoral goings on. Throughout the novel the connection between the characters - from Vampires to movie stars - is shown by how they eat in the same restaurants, go to the same schools and use the same drug dealers - simple ways like that. It showcases nihilism in the extreme but at the same time it shows an interconnection that is common to mankind at large. Everyone on some level has a connection to everyone else. Again, the book divided critics - some thought it was brilliant, some thought it was utter garbage. Having a looser structure than his other books, readers might not find it as exciting as say - American Psycho, but he does draw a pretty realistic picture, if deeply cynical, of the people, place and time period he is portraying in The Informers. Ellis is always particularly good at exposing the sleazy underbelly of life. Some of us like to read about things like that, some of us balk at reading things like that. For those of us who like it, there are few writers of Bret Easton Ellis' calibre to tell us stories about immoral things in such an immediate and dynamic way. The Informers does this admirably.