Bret Easton Ellis: When Does Stalking Become Art?
Here
s a meta-mind trip for you: Bret Easton Ellis, author of the celebrity-obsessed tomes Glamorama and American Psycho, is now the subject of a novel himself. Pop your Xanax, people. The plot: a young writer crazily obsesses about celebrity novelist Bret Easton Ellis. Woah. The book
tentatively titled Vernon Downs
hasn
t been published, nor is there a book deal. However, a copy "accidentally" popped up in PDF form on Bret
s Yahoo fansite. And the author, Jamie Clarke, is apparently giving interviews:
Q: The novel is in fact a roman a clef, right?
Clarke: My relationship/obsession/friendship with BEE forms the basis of the novel, a fact that quickly becomes self-evident in the manuscript. In fact, the opening pages are purely autobiographical: I ascertained Bret's home address from the Bennington alumni office, wrote him a letter asking if I could interview him through the mail, and he invited me to conduct the interview in person at his loft in New York, a magnanimous gesture that characterizes my relationship with Bret.
Jay McInerney is totally jealous. The full, unsourced and (as far as we know) previously unpublished interview with Bret's biggest stalker after the jump. -KEW
Q: Describe your new novel, VERNON DOWNS.
Clarke: VERNON DOWNS is about James Wells, whose obsession with his favorite writer, Vernon Downs drives James to follow as closely in Downs's footsteps as he can. James attends Downs's alma mater, Camden College, in Vermont, and models his own writing after Downs's. He works up the courage to write Downs a letter (after securing the writer's address from the Camden alumni office) with the hope of interviewing the controversial writer for his senior lecture. When Downs suggests they conduct the interview in person,
in New York, a surprising chain of events full of twists is put into motion.
Q: Camden College is quite obviously the pseudonym Bret Easton Ellis uses for Bennington College, his alma mater.
JC: Bennington is my alma mater, too. I graduated from the low-residency MFA program. And much like the protagonist in VERNON DOWNS, I went to Bennington knowing only that Bret Easton Ellis had attended.
Q: The novel is in fact a roman a clef, right?
JC: My relationship/obsession/friendship with BEE forms the basis of the novel, a fact that quickly becomes self-evident in themanuscript. In fact, the opening pages are purely autobiographical: I ascertained Bret's home address from the Bennington alumni office, wrote him a letter asking if I
could interview him through the mail, and he invited me to conduct the interview in person at his loft in New York, a magnanimous gesture that characterizes my relationship with Bret. Over the course of the following years, Bret was kind enough to read work by me, blurb my first book WE'RE SO FAMOUS (Bloomsbury USA), and generally helped induct me into the literary community when I moved to New York after graduating from Bennington.
Q: Does the scandal James causes at the fictional Camden College have a basis in fact?
JC: Sadly, yes. The scandal is a true account of what happened to me at Bennington when I gave my lecture on BEE.
Q: As is the flap over James's proposed oral biography of Vernon Downs, right?
JC: Yes. My proposed oral biography of BEE blew up in my face when NEW YORK MAGAZINE ran a gossip article titled BRET EASTON ELLIS EVADES HISTORY, insinuating that Bret didn't want the oral biography to happen, which killed the proposal with publishers.
Q: Ellis shares the dedication with "JDS." Is this J.D. Salinger?
JC: Mr. Salinger is the co-dedicatee. I worked for his literary agency and was the source of some personal information about him that found its way onto Page Six, which I regret. This fact is a central plot element in VERNON DOWNS, as well.
Q: Other characters from Ellis's world make an appearance in VERNON DOWNS, albeit under cover of anagram-Amanda Urban, Jay McInerney, Donna Tartt, and Joan Didion, to name a few. How did you decide to include these real-life people over creating fictional characters?
JC: While it's true these figures appear in VERNON DOWNS, only the true Ellis fan will pick up on the anagrams, I think. The casual reader will just see them as fictional characters, which is the attraction of the roman a clef.
Q: Has Bret read the book?
JC: No, though I wouldn't hesitate to show it to him. But he's busy with the August release of his new novel, LUNAR PARK, a metafiction featuring Bret as the main character. Quite an interesting read, especially for Bret's fans (like me) who will recognize the autobiographical details in LUNAR PARK.
Q: I understand you're mentioned in LUNAR PARK, something about writing an unauthorized biography of Bret.
JC: I can neither confirm nor deny.
Q: Does VERNON DOWNS have a literary predecessor?
JC: The book I had in mind while writing VERNON DOWNS was Alan Judd's marvelous novel THE DEVIL'S OWN WORK. I hoped to replicate the way Judd keeps the strings tight on the narrative in his novel, which creates a tension that hopefully propels the reader through the book.
