Sunday With Books: The Informers
I have to watch I say about LA on here. While our tax info technically binds us to the O.C., we’ll always have a small corner of our heart reserved for the city. It’s our most direct in-line to the cultural zeitgeist, and in that regard, we’d hate to disparage it. We’ll leave that to the great Angeleño poets of yesteryear, the grumpy old men and women who knew it best. To name a few: there’s Fante. Bukowski. Babitz. Chandler. Didion. Ellis.
Of the names mentioned above, Ellis is the only living writer. You’re almost certainly familiar with his work as the lunatic behind American Psycho. But, considering there are children who read this site, we’re gonna go ahead and save American Psycho for another rainy day. We’ll opt for something with a little less postmodern gore-core, something at least somewhat rooted in reality.
See: The Informers.
With his third novel, Ellis renders a profoundly disturbing depiction of mid-eighties LA as the “moral badlands” of America, a 20th century epicenter of greed and debauchery where soul-sucking vampires stalk the strip at night and corporate executives partake in blood rituals. It’s benzos and banknotes, porsches and palm trees, high-rise hedonism and unholy trysts; it’s also the shortest and most accessible of his works. If we’ve piqued your interest, click the link below for a free E-book version of The Informers. —Jackson Todd
