American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis

Patrick Bateman, a wealthy Manhattan investment banker, harbors a secret life as a serial killer. Ellis's satirical skewering of 1980s consumerism and masculinity was so graphically violent and sexual that Simon & Schuster dropped it before publication; it was published by Vintage in 1991, banned in Germany until 2000, and is still sold only shrink-wrapped to adults in Queensland, Australia.