I read American Psycho even though I didn’t particularly like it. Patrick Bateman’s inner monologue reads like a cross between bad chick-lit (brand names, restaurants, and a weird obsession with grooming) and mansplaining (or when a 12-year-old boy explains to you in detail his drawing of a war scene) (I say this with love), sprinkled with enough italics to out-Victorian the Victorians.

This is clearly deliberate, but I was expecting something akin to “The Confessions of Anders Breivik” (should those exist) but got more like “A Portrait of Gamma Rage.”

What is a Gamma, you ask? Gamma is a level on a hierarchy of male behaviors that is more nuanced than the simple alpha/beta dichotomy. Gamma is very useful for distinguishing between helpful beta behavior and useless beta behavior. Vox Day developed this hierarchy and I’ve found it to be very useful in dealing with men in the workplace. (Disclaimer: I’m a woman.)

American Psycho is an portrait of a Wall Street executive in the 80s. It has the air of literary fiction, in which the author clearly looks down upon his protagonist and is clearly making a Very Serious Thoughts About Society. The ambiguous ending adds to this, which I find obnoxious because while I enjoy puzzling out books, I do not enjoy puzzling out books that the author very self consciously wants you to puzzle out.

Forgive me, I’m a recovering English major. Anything that reminds me of an MFA seminar makes me break out in hives.

Additionally, unlike The Wolf of Wall Street (movie edition) which was told by an unreliable narrator clearly trying to sell us on how cool he is but that actually had the chops to back it up and who had a sense of humor, Patrick Bateman doesn’t have a sense of humor. He never talks about work. He talks about the office, and business cards, lunch meetings, and the Fisher account, all sorts of stuff RELATING to work, but never anything about doing actual work. He never appears to actually do anything.

I think this is deliberate on the part of the author, and it reads like this is somebody’s idea of how Wall Street works rather than an actual satire of the real (“real”?) work in finance. The Wolf of Wall Street felt like it was told in good faith; American Psycho I’m not so sure. However, I like how the author took the “killer” phrases that men often use in the workplace, and use them for dramatic effect:

He pats me on the back, says, “You’re a madman, Bateman. An animal. A total animal.”

“I can’t disagree.” I laugh weakly, walking him to the door.

That’s not to defend Wall Street, because I’ve seen the corruption in Higher Education and I can’t even imagine how bad it gets when there are actual, material rewards to be stolen. I just wish that this book had more substance, instead of mirror.

Now. Half of that is because Patrick Bateman is quite likely a Gamma male, and the violence in the book is most likely (spoilers really start here) all inside of his head. I started to realize this about halfway through the book, when he claims to have killed a dog in front of a grocery store in broad daylight, with nobody noticing. Of course Bateman’s point is that people are sheep and don’t pay attention to anything, but when, later in the book, a shootout with the police results in an exploding gas tank, I have a hard time taking this guy’s narration at face value. Clearly a rich fantasy life.

That takes care of gamma tell number one:

There are two easy Gamma signals. The first is dishonesty, particularly in the face of conflict. That dishonesty can take many forms, from false bravado to bizarre lies about their accomplishments to inaccurate explanations of their actions.

Bateman goes so far into his delusions that he imagines real-life consequences for his own imagined actions, such as when a cabbie mugs him in revenge for the time that he killed another cab driver. Or, for instance, in a scene near the beginning of the book ends in him blinding a bum, but he happens across the same bum later in the novel with a sign that reads “Blinded in Vietnam.”

Gamma tell number two comes into play at the end of the novel, where we’re coasting toward the realization that ~maybe it was a delusion after all:

The second is heightened sensitivity. The Gamma is constantly on the alert for what others are thinking and saying about him. He is excessively pleased by praise and will often cite it, and is inordinately upset by criticism. He has a very limited capacity for shrugging off either.

The narration gives us a few cracks in which to see the true Bateman, or see Bateman through others’ eyes. The next exchange happens at a party, where Bateman corners Carnes, who he once called and left a voicemail confessing all the crimes he had committed, which he then tried to pass off as a joke. Of course none of the men remember each others’ names, so Carnes thinks this whole thing is a joke played by somebody named Davis.

“Davis,” he sighs, as if patiently trying to explain something to a child, “I am not one to bad-mouth anyone, but your joke was amusing. But come on, man, you had one fatal flaw: Bateman’s such a bloody ass-kisser, such a brown-nosing goody-goody, that I couldn’t fully appreciate it. Otherwise it was amusing. Now let’s have lunch, or we’ll have dinner at 150 Wooster or something with McDermott or Preston. A real raver.” He tries to move on.

“Ray-vah? Ray-vah? Did you say ray-vah, Carnes?” I’m wide-eyed, feeling wired even though I haven’t done any drugs. “What are you talking about? Bateman is what?”

“Oh good god, man. Why else would Evelyn Richards dump him? You know, really. He could barely pick up an escort girl, let alone…what was it you said he did to her?” Harold is still looking distractedly around the club and he waves to another couple, raising his champagne glass. “Oh yes, ‘chop her up.'” He starts laughing again, though this time it sounds polite. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must really.”

In delusion-land, this could be another example of how you can spell something out to people but, unlike people who are enlightened by their own intelligence, who will never pay attention enough to understand. In real life, nobody takes Bateman seriously. Bateman, though, tries to make fun of your uncultured Boston accent.

Then we turn to a third gamma tell: the secret king. This is my favorite.

All gammas are secret kings ruling over their delusion bubble with majesty and sly, smooth charm….

In this passage, from the breakup scene, Bateman lays it right on out:

“Honey?” she asks.

“Don’t call me that,” I snap.

“What? Honey?” she asks.

“Yes,” I snap again.

“What do you want me to call you?” she asks, indignantly. “CEO?” She stifles a giggle.

“Oh Christ.”

“No, really Patrick. What do you want me to call you?”

King, I’m thinking. King, Evelyn. I want you to call me King. But I don’t say this.

And by not saying it, he stays safely inside the delusion bubble.

I don’t know anything about the author of American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis, but part of me wonders how much he is projecting into this book. Honestly wondering, this is not a leading question or anything.

There were funny moments, but they didn’t offset the “I’m just gonna skip ahead a few pages” depictions of violence and sex. At some point, even if it’s supposed to be satire, there’s a limit. Maybe my limit is lower than most people’s. But I’m at the point where I don’t want my mind’s eye cluttered with that type of imagery.

Thematically, Batesons’s skewed self-image raises questions of the difference between how others see us and what we keep inside, hidden to ourselves. I can relate to that, as I’ve kept quite a number of things (like my political views) hidden from my own colleagues. Questions like this can be interesting to ask ourselves–if we’re being honest–and can spark a good amount of self-reflection.

I’m not sure you need this book to do that.

 

It’s also fun to finally understand some references that I didn’t even know were references. Surprise!