Psyched on ‘Psycho’

Has Amy Wallace actually read Bret Easton Ellis’ “American Psycho� (“Is It a Deal? Maybe, Maybe Not,� June 4)? It is fairly clear to any discerning reader that it is a vicious satire on America in the ‘80s--you could substitute an E for the final O in the title, which surely was an intentional pun by the author, to get an accurate summary of the book.

Wallace’s article dismisses Ellis’ novel as “a catalog of brutal killings,� suggesting that the screenwriters somehow infused the material with socially redeeming significance. The satire was already there in abundance--to me, there is no greater novel that sums up the greed, vanity and hypocrisy of the United States in the 1980s than “American Psycho.�

It is doubtful that any Hollywood movie will be able to successfully present the dreamlike confusion of reality and hallucination that pervades “American Psycho.� If anything good comes of this project, it will be that this underrated book gains the larger readership it so justly deserves.

CHRISTIAN HERTZOG, San Diego