The Shards

''The Shards'' is a 2023 autofiction/horror novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis, published on January 17, 2023, by Alfred A. Knopf. Ellis's first novel in 13 years, ''The Shards'' is a fictionalized memoir of Ellis's final year of high school in 1981 in Los Angeles. It was first serialized by Ellis as an audiobook through his podcast on Patreon. The novel's narrator, Bret, relates the story of the events of his senior year of high school in 1981, of he and his close circle of friends' acquaintance with new student Robert Mallory and the tragedy that followed. The novel can be categorized as both autofiction and metafiction.

Plot summary

At the outset of their senior year of high school in 1981, Bret Easton Ellis and his friends are the children of affluent film directors, producers, and other major players of the Hollywood scene, living in the heights and canyons of the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. They attend an elite prep school, Buckley, have easy access to drugs, go to lavish parties, and drive luxury cars.

When new student Robert Mallory first arrives at Buckley, Bret is sure that he saw him at a movie theater months before. However, Robert denies this. He claims to have previously spent time in a psychiatric facility and Bret distrusts him because of this. Bret soon starts believing that Robert is responsible for the murders of the "Trawler," a serial killer that has been targeting mainly female teenagers in the Los Angeles area. The Trawler's victims first find that furniture has been mysteriously rearranged in their homes, then their pets disappear and they receive phone calls with hang-ups, before they are abducted, mutilated and killed, and their corpses and those of their pets are later found made up into an "assemblage." The Trawler is thought to be connected to the Riders of the Afterlife, a Satanic cult.

Bret's circle of friends, which includes the Homecoming king and queen - Thom and his girlfriend Susan - welcome Robert into their circle and trust him, despite Bret's insistence that Robert is a psychotic liar. These accusations fall on deaf ears, and Bret's girlfriend Debbie believes Bret is imagining things. Bret is gay, but passes as straight. He is eventually lured to a hotel suite by Debbie's father Terry, a powerful film producer who claims that he will help Bret with writing a script for a teen film. Instead, he takes sexual advantage of Bret. Bret becomes distant from Debbie as he engages in casual sex with two of his classmates, Matt and Ryan. Matt's pets vanish and he later finds the furniture in his house rearranged. Matt then goes missing and his dead body is later discovered in an arrangement with the corpses of his pets. The police rule this to have been an accidental death by misadventure involving heavy drug use, but Bret suspects otherwise when Matt's father shows him pictures of the crime scene.

Robert meanwhile claims that he is being followed by some 'freak' who has been stalking him from a distance. Bret discovers that Susan is cheating on Thom with Robert, and their secret affair eventually blows up. Debbie begins to receive silent phone calls and her horse is found mutilated and killed. She is later attacked in her swimming pool by an unseen assailant whom she escapes.

After an attack on Susan and her former boyfriend Thom by a masked man, who flees after Susan bites into his arm, Bret goes to Robert's penthouse apartment, seals the door to the unit, unplugs the phones, and grabs a kitchen knife to confront Robert. The two end up in a knife fight. Robert falls to his death, and it is ruled a suicide based on Bret's account of events.

The police discover the remains of one of the Trawler's victims in a house in Benedict Canyon belonging to Robert's uncle, at which Robert frequently stayed. Bret gains celebrity status at the school due to having apparently caught the serial killer. However, the Trawler claims another victim, and a note sent to police by the killer reveals that they were not Robert at all, but had rather committed the killings as an act of sacrifice to Robert, whom they named 'The God.' Despite admitting to all the killings, they deny any involvement in the attack on Thom and Susan, and declare that now that their 'God' is dead this will be their last killing. Nothing more is heard from the Trawler, but Bret's reputation and popularity plummets as his story is proven false, and after noticing a bite mark on Bret's arm in the exact place she bit her assailant, Susan comes to believe it was Bret who attacked herself and Thom.

Two decades later, Thom attends a book signing by Bret, now a famous author, and asks Bret if it was him who attacked Susan and himself that night. Bret denies this and speculates that it was the Trawler in an unsuccessful killing attempt. The novel's ending is ambiguous, leaving the identity of the Trawler, Susan and Thom's attacker, the exact nature of Robert's death, and Bret's account of the whole ordeal open to debate.

Publication

''The Shards'' was first serialized as an audiobook read by Ellis through his podcast on Patreon. The audio serial was published in twenty-seven individual installments, released between September 6, 2020, and September 6, 2021.

On December 1, 2021, Ellis announced on Instagram that the manuscript of ''The Shards'' had just arrived for him to look over. In May 2022, pre-orders for the book were made available. It was published by Alfred A. Knopf on January 17, 2023.

Reception

Reviewing the audiobook for ''The Times'' in 2021, Theo Zenou called it Ellis's "weirdest, most interesting work in years" and felt it was "rendered all the more absorbing" by the audiobook format.

''Kirkus Reviews'' wrote, "The usual issues with Ellis apply to this bulky novel: The flatness of the characters, the gratuitousness of the violence, the Didion-esque cool that sometimes reads as Olympian smugness. But as the story proceeds, it also becomes easier to admire Ellis' ability to sustain the mood."

''Publishers Weekly'' wrote that the book "feels like two disparate novels—an overly detailed, fictionalized memoir and a high gothic serial killer thriller—that never come together meaningfully or believably".

Melissa Broder said in ''The New York Times'' that the book "invit sthe reader more profoundly into the emotional realm of the protagonist" than Ellis's earlier works. She also observed that while the length and looping narrative helped build suspense, "the reader wonders if the book could have been shorter and still achieved the same psychedelic, collage-like effect". Broder concluded that "the novel's climax and denouement ultimately fall flat".

Television adaptation

In April 2023, it was reported that HBO was developing a television series adaptation of the novel. Ellis will write and executive produce with Nick Hall and Brian Young. In a June 2023 interview with the Spanish publication ''El Independiente'', Ellis confirmed that Luca Guadagnino is set to direct the series with Ellis himself saying that he may direct some episodes as well. In September 2023, Jacob Elordi was reported to be in talks for a role in the adaption. In January 2025, Ellis revealed that the adaptation, which Kristoffer Borgli had signed on to direct, was no longer being developed at HBO, following creative differences. That February, Ryan Murphy was revealed to be in closing talks to revive the project at a different network. That May, it was announced that FX was in early development on the series starring Kaia Gerber and directed by Max Winkler. It will be produced by 20th Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television. Murphy, Ellis and Winkler will executive produce alongside Nick Hall, Kathleen McCaffrey and Brian Young. In July 2025, FX gave the series order of ''The Shards''. It was also announced that Igby Rigney, Homer Gere, and Graham Campbell joined the cast as Ellis, Robert Mallory, and Thom Wright respectively.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shards, The
2023 American novels
Autofiction
Alfred A. Knopf books
American memoirs
American horror novels
Fiction set in 1981
Novels by Bret Easton Ellis
Novels set in the 1980s
Novels set in Los Angeles
Audiobooks
Novels about serial killers
Novels first published in serial form
American gothic novels
Metafictional novels