TV Article Bret Easton Ellis speaks The ''American Psycho'' author responds to the critics who say his book is too violent By Roger Friedman Published on March 8, 1991 05:00AM EST On a recent snowy New York morning, American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis, 27, gave ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY a rare interview by phone from his East Village apartment. Have recent criticisms by Roger Rosenblatt in The New York Times Book Review and Norman Mailer in Vanity Fair shaken you?No. I really wasn’t shook up at all. I’m supposed to be taking Roger Rosenblatt seriously? I thought he made an ass of himself. When you’re writing a review about a novel narrated by a serial killer and you’re criticizing his grammar, I think you’re losing sight of the overall picture. [As for Mailer,] the most an author can ask for is to have his book taken seriously — which I think he did, but I don’t particularly agree with him. Do you think your female friends — particularly Marla Hanson [disfigured by two male attackers in 1986] — would be offended by the book?Marla hasn’t read the book, but I don’t think she’d be offended by it. I don’t think anyone should be offended by it. In many ways it’s about how horrible serial killers are. I can’t understand how women can mistake the book for a how-to on torture and dismemberment. In your novel Less Than Zero, a 12-year-old girl is raped. In The Rules of Attraction, a college girl has a violent sexual experience. Do you see yourself as a completely demented misogynist?Yes. Yes I am. I am a completely demented misogynist. Are you saying this facetiously?What would you say if you were asked this question? Is there a place in the literary world where you see yourself?No. I don’t. I’m on my own little island.