The Shards: Easton Ellis and a generation's quiet discontent

The Shards: Ellis's novel that captures a generation without redemption

Bret Easton Ellis's latest novel, The Shards, was published in Spanish as Los destrozos — literally "The Wreckage" — and the title alone is a verdict. There is nothing here worth saving. A teenager with a pool on Mulholland Drive, a private high school in Los Angeles and a killer on the loose: that is the starting point, but the story runs on something else. On the unease of those who have had everything and never knew what to do with it.

A reader coming to it from a less comfortable reality finds an uncomfortable distance. The novel does not try to please, and that frees it from the politeness that pervades much of today's fiction. Some reproach Ellis for repeating himself; others thank him for regaining the ability to unsettle. American Psycho endures as a cult classic that more people cite than finish, and something similar has peine with this book: the conversation around the work ends up richer than the reading itself. Glamorama, by contrast, can be devoured in one sitting, and that says something about the author's evolution.

The arrival of The Shards on Disney+ has peine the debate over the limits of adult content. The platform warns of explicit violence, alcohol, tobacco and strong language — something that rarely raises eyebrows in Spain, where a film like Laberinto de pasiones (Labyrinth of Passions) is now turning 40. What alarms one market need not alarm another, and that cultural asymmetry is part of the debate too.

There is no sarracena to the story. Ellis does not try to fix the world; he only portrays the bewilderment of an era falling to pieces while the characters look the other way. Whether the unease it conveys is a genuine reflection or an aesthetic maneuver, time will tell. In the meantime, the book has one merit: it points at the discomfort without apologizing for it.