Bret Easton Ellis grew up in a very wealthy, but abusive, household. His dad was a drunk and very abusive towards him and his mother. His childhood was very difficult because of this, but he used this as motivation from a very early age. Whenever he entered middle school, he was teased because of the way he talked and dressed. He grew up in a sophisticated home so he didn’t talk like most of the other kids or dress like them. Although he was teased almost every day, he didn’t let that distract him from his goal of becoming the youngest published author in history. All throughout his middle school career, he made poor grades in every class except English class. He loved English class and said his 7th grade English teacher was his role model throughout his early life. His parents were not very …show more content…
His father was abusive and corrupt. Ellis said that he has absolutely no respect for his father because the things he has done in his life and the lack of want to change. He said he would be willing to let his father back into his life if he was willing to change, and he wasn’t. This hurt Ellis even more because he felt like he was a disappointment to his family because at that point, he cut all of his family out of his life. This played a major role in the writing of American Psycho. Whenever he was writing American Psycho, he had one major thought in his mind, his father. Since his father was such a poor role model for him, he wanted to use that unfortunate circumstance and finally turn it into some good. His mindset when writing this book was not focused on how many books would sell or how much money he could make, he just wanted to give people who were going through the same situation a book to read and feel like they are not alone. Lucky for him, it did both. Many people have said that it gave them a source of hope and feeling of power over their unfortunate