Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Knopf
Manufacturer: Knopf
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 481
Printing Date: December 29, 1998
Publishing house: Knopf
Release Date: December 29, 1998
Sale Popularity Level: 838283
Studio: Knopf
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A man in what is recognizably New York is drawn into a shadowy looking-glass of that society and then finds himself trapped on the other side, in a much darker place where fame and terrorism, and family and politics, are inextricably linked and sometimes indistinguishable.
Amazon.com Review:
Glamorama is a satirical mass-murder opus more ambitious than Bret Easton Ellis's 1990 American Psycho. It starts as a spritz-of-consciousness romp about kid-club entrepreneur Victor Ward, 'the It boy of the moment,' an actor-model up for Flatliners II. Ellis has perfect pitch for glam-speak, and he gives nightlife the fizz, pace, and shimmer it lacks in drab reality. Anyone could cite the right celeb names and tunes, but like a rock-polishing machine, his prose gives literary sheen to fame-chasing air-kissers. He's coldly funny: when Victor's girl tries to argue him out of a breakup, she angrily snorts six bumps of coke, stops, mutters, 'Wrong vial,' snorts four corrective doses from whatever she has in her other fist, then objects to a rival at the party wearing the same dress she's wearing.
You had to be there; Ellis makes you feel you are. But such satire is a very smart bomb targeting a very large barn. Models' status anxiety doesn't merit Ellis's Tom Wolfe-esque expertise. Glamorama gets better when Victor gets drafted into a mysterious group of model-terrorists who bomb 747s and the Ritz in Paris, wearing Kevlar-lined Armani suits. Oh, they still behave like shallow snobs, pronouncing 'cool' as if it had 12 o's. But now when somebody swills Cristal, it's apt to be poisoned, to horrific effect, which Ellis expertly, affectlessly describes. His enfant-terrible debut, Less Than Zero, aped Joan Didion. Now Ellis has grown into a lesser Don DeLillo--and that's high praise. --Tim Appelo
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Yes, it does seem like a lot of name dropping and hipsterisms in the opening hundred pages or so, but that is just laying the foundation for the huge story to come. This is probably my all time favorite novel, way better than American Psycho.
Rated by buyers 
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I honestly did not finish the book-I only read maybe 50 pages. Every other paragraph was filled with a who's who name drop of the mid 1990's, which may be fine for exemplification of the story, but did little to entertain, especially reading it 10 yrs after it was published. The mixing of chapter parts had the potential to be interesting; I just didn't care enough to continue.
Rated by buyers 
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From word one, you are dunked under the surface of reality and submerged into Victor's world. The book holds your head under while you struggle against the name-dropping onslaught of party boy conversations and narration. Ellis paints the 90s like a photograph.
Just when you think you know the book's tone, just when you've become accustomed to vacuous Victor, cloying Chloe, antagonistic Allison, dangerous Damien...the book flips you on your head and the entire thing changes. I'd give too much away if I said anything else.
Man, is it cold in here to you? Clean up that confetti over there before you go.
Rated by buyers -
This book goes by really quickly in the very first half, and I was hooked. The second half went a little slower, but it seemed deliberate. There's so much imagery in this book that keeps re-occurring, and the author did an excellent job in setting moods with each "portion" of the book. I say this because it's structured in three small portions---one with our protagonist in New York living a fast and glamorous life, one where he is stuck on a cross-Atlantic ship in a dreamlike state, and one in Europe, where he's almost catatonic as everything around him spins out of control. I don't want to spoil the plot here, so I'll conclude with a definitive "Read it." It's not a "Must Read," but still very enjoyable.
Rated by buyers -
This book is very much like American Psycho (although American Psycho is the superior novel). Victor Ward and Patrick Bateman struggle with the same issue of individuality and identity in an image obsessed culture where the glamorous veneer masks a bloody, disgusting underside. This book takes the idea of insanity to the max, with a spaced out vibe that works if you decide to go along with it. Although, at times at the end this book seems to just be random episodes that make no sense. This book is kind of like a Salvidor Dali painting in written form, it's surreal at times. I recommend the book only to fans of Ellis' other works, especially those who have read American Psycho and who can see Pat Bateman and Victor Ward as two sides of the same coin. The one difference of course is that Bateman is more philosophical and makes some sense of his situation, whereas Ward is entirely vapid. Pay close attention for a number of cameos by previous characters from works by Ellis and McInerny, especially a brief encounter with Pat Bateman!
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