In the follow-up book to his internationally successful and controversial novel American Psycho, Ellis once again confirms his outstanding position as a literary chronicler of the present. In twelve interwoven stories, the author paints a picture of a gentle apocalypse in 1980s Los Angeles: sun-kissed teenage students cruise the streets between Bel Air and Malibu Beach in their Porsches, always in search of the ultimate thrill that adds some authenticity to their credit card-secured lives. Whether drug dealers or privileged daughters, they are all experts in consumption - MTV, trendy restaurants, drugs, and Armani - they meet for meals, for a line of coke, for sex, yet they have nothing to say to each other. Their parents are no different, frustrated wives from the film industry keep lovers the age of their sons, a father...