Lunar Park

by Bret Easton Ellis

The novel begins with an inflated and parodic but reasonably accurate portrayal of Ellis's early fame. It details incidents of his rampant drug use and his publicly humiliating book tours to promote Glamorama. The novel dissolves into fiction as Ellis describes a liaison with an actress named Jayne Dennis, whom he later marries, and with whom he conceives a child. From this point, the fictional Ellis' life reflects the real writer's only in some descriptions of the past and possibly in his general sentiments.

Ellis and Jayne move to fictional Midland, an affluent suburban town outside New York City, which they no longer consider safe due to pervasive terrorist acts in a post-9/11 America. Fictional incidents include suicide bombings in Wal-Marts and a dirty bomb detonated in Florida. Strange incidents start happening on a Halloween night, some involving a Terby doll belonging to Ellis's fictional stepdaughter Sarah.

As the novel progresses, the haunting of Ellis's house and questions over the death of his father become increasingly prominent. With his history of drug use and alcoholism, his wife, children and housekeeper are understandably skeptical of his claims that the house is haunted. Unfolding events only very gradually reveal a much more complicated situation than a simple haunting. There is a dynamic interplay between the author's dead father, the house itself and specific negative associations buried within the author's own subconscious mind. Added to all of this is the very late-breaking and almost gratuitous insinuation that Robby, the narrator's young son, may somehow be at the epicenter of all these events.