The Informers

Bret Easton Ellis does not care much for rich people. The Informers is the third book of his I've read, and each one deals with terrible rich people who did nothing to earn their money but instead live out their lives as assholes unworthy of any respect. American Psycho featured the infamous Patrick Bateman and skewered (literally and metaphorically) Wall Street investors; Less Than Zero dealt with similarly terrible college students who end the book trying to make a snuff film. Unfortunately, in going over the top with his ridiculous characters, I thought those two books had significantly less impact than they could have- while we all might harbor a special hatred for rich assholes, no one thinks that they're actually going around murdering people, and the two books ended up veering towards comedy more than any scathing indictment. This, however, is where The Informers succeeds. Set up as a series of inter-connected short stories, we get inside the head of a dozen Los Angeles citizens and discover how depraved one can be with too much money and time. It's not nearly as entertaining as Patrick Bateman talking about Genesis and then torturing whatever prostitute was unlucky enough to get in his limo, but at least it feels like there's a point to it.