Julia_98 reviewed Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
Haunted by Myself – My Uneasy Journey through Bret Easton Ellis’s Lunar Park
4 stars
Reading Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis felt like stepping into a hall of mirrors where the reflections kept changing, sometimes grotesque, sometimes heartbreakingly intimate. At first, I thought I was reading a parody of the author’s own life: the narrator is named Bret Easton Ellis, a writer infamous for his excesses, his celebrity, and his brutal novels. There was an almost comic sharpness to the way he exposed his own vanity, drug use, and fractured relationships. But as I turned the pages, the tone shifted, and I found myself caught in something far darker.
The book becomes a hybrid: part memoir, part horror story, part satire. Ellis describes settling into suburban family life with his wife and son, only to find the past clawing its way back. Strange, supernatural events unfold: a possessed house, unexplained deaths, ghostly presences. I could never tell if these hauntings were real or simply …
Reading Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis felt like stepping into a hall of mirrors where the reflections kept changing, sometimes grotesque, sometimes heartbreakingly intimate. At first, I thought I was reading a parody of the author’s own life: the narrator is named Bret Easton Ellis, a writer infamous for his excesses, his celebrity, and his brutal novels. There was an almost comic sharpness to the way he exposed his own vanity, drug use, and fractured relationships. But as I turned the pages, the tone shifted, and I found myself caught in something far darker.
The book becomes a hybrid: part memoir, part horror story, part satire. Ellis describes settling into suburban family life with his wife and son, only to find the past clawing its way back. Strange, supernatural events unfold: a possessed house, unexplained deaths, ghostly presences. I could never tell if these hauntings were real or simply projections of guilt and fear. That uncertainty was what disturbed me most.
What struck me deeply was the way Ellis used horror not just to scare, but to reveal. Behind the poltergeists and the violence, I felt the ache of a man terrified of fatherhood, of love, of responsibility. The suburban calm was just a mask stretched over dread.
By the end, I was unsettled but oddly moved. Lunar Park isn’t just about being haunted by ghosts—it’s about being haunted by one’s own past, one’s mistakes, and the fear of not being able to change. Closing the book, I felt like I had witnessed a confession disguised as a horror novel, and it lingered with me long after.