Summary
Patrick calls his evening date, a woman named Patricia, who asks to call him back. When she does, Patrick puts her on hold, then halts her attempt to commandeer the night's dinner plans (by suggesting they see a show starring her ex) by announcing he has reservations at Dorsia, an exclusive restaurant. However, Patrick fails to secure a reservation at Dorsia and tells a crestfallen Patricia en route that they are headed to another restaurant named Barcadia. Annoyed by Patricia's gloomy mood, Patrick goes to Tunnel afterward and buys cocaine from Madison's connection, a man named Ricardo. After they do cocaine together in an upstairs bathroom, Patricia apologizes for her sullen attitude while Patrick drifts off, free-associating about things he seems to want or desire, like "Jami Gertz," "a sharpei," and "a cell phone."
Tense and hungover, Patrick visits a dry cleaner on the West Side near Columbia University that has failed to rid his clothes and sheets of bloodstains, purposely stepping on a homeless man's foot along the way. He berates the Chinese woman working there before running into a woman named Victoria, whom Patrick mistakenly calls Samantha. Patrick tells her the bloodstains are from cran-apple juice and Hershey syrup, and politely declines her date invitation by saying he has tickets to Les Miserables. Walking back, Patrick feels a moment of sympathy when he mistakes a Columbia student for a homeless woman.
Patrick sits at Harry's with two colleagues named Todd Hamlin and George Reeves. The men spot Paul Owen across the bar and argue over the members of his entourage, before Paul Owen stops by and introduces them as Trent Moore and Paul Denton. Patrick becomes uneasy when Paul Owen asks him about the Hawkins account, and realizes Paul Owen thinks he is another Pierce & Pierce associate named Marcus Halberstam, who is dating a woman named Cecilia. Patrick half-recognizes Paul Denton (whom he thinks is staring at him) from a cruise the previous March, making Patrick wonder if he should "get his telephone number or, better yet, his address."
Patrick accepts an invitation from Courtney to have dinner with her and her friends Scott and Anne Smiley at a restaurant named Deck Chairs. Patrick fantasizes about violently murdering Scott, Anne, and their son over dinner, and feels suddenly vulnerable when telling Anne to order a Diet Pepsi instead of a Diet Coke. Patrick prods Courtney into bragging about a piece in his art collection by David Onica and spars with Scott over the quality of their compact-disc players. Back at home, Patrick and Courtney attempt to have sex, but stop twice so that Patrick can find spermicidal lubricant and readjust the receptacle tip of the condom. Patrick becomes infuriated and Courtney cries over her fear of contracting AIDS. After the two awkwardly finish having sex, Courtney suggests Patrick is incapable of feeling.
At the office, Patrick tells Jean to cancel two meetings before walking into the board room, joined by Luis Carruthers. Luis's lack of sophistication seems to bother Patrick, who nonetheless accepts his lunch invitation at the Yale Club with a colleague named Dibble. Two executives named Reed Thompson and Todd Broderick walk in, followed by Craig, whom Patrick senses is still upset with him for calling Pastels' pizza "brittle." Craig spitefully produces a newspaper article citing Pastels as the favorite pizza of Patrick's idol, Donald Trump. When Paul Owen enters the room, his tie and well-kept hair dazzle Patrick. Later, at a video rental store, Patrick renews Body Double again, and suffers a Valium-induced dizzy spell outside of a grocer named D'Agostino's, before working out and receiving a facial and manicure at the Pierre Hotel.
After Evelyn's neighbor is found decapitated, Patrick takes Evelyn to dinner at Barcadia, despite also telling Courtney to meet him that night for dinner at another restaurant. They discuss Tim's girlfriend Meredith, who they both dislike, and the whereabouts of Tim, whom Patrick alleges has been hospitalized for brain injuries in Arizona. Evelyn momentarily mistakes one of the restaurant patrons for Ivana Trump, enraging Patrick. When Evelyn talks about weddings, Patrick fantasizes aloud about murdering her mother and brother. When she asks Patrick directly about the proposition of marriage, he remains non-committal and lights a cigar.
At a black-tie event at the Puck Building, Courtney warns Patrick not to have lunch with Luis at the Yale Club because she thinks he suspects something. Patrick tells her he has to return some videos and refrains from accompanying his Pierce & Pierce colleagues to dinner, instead walking alone through an antique district, where he happens upon a homeless man named Al and his dog. Patrick berates Al for not holding down a job and gouges his eyes out with a serrated blade, before stabbing him multiple times and killing his dog. Feeling celebratory, Patrick goes to McDonald's afterward and orders an extra-thick milkshake.
Patrick professes his love for the discography of the band Genesis—"the best, most exciting band to come out of England in the 1980s"—by providing a critical synopsis of each of their albums in light of their long-term creative evolution. Later, at a restaurant named Duplex, a bored Patrick listens to fellow Pierce & Pierce executive Christopher Armstrong give a sales pitch about his recent vacation to the Bahamas. Patrick daydreams about things he despises, like his doorman and gay pride parades, and imagines squirting blood from an open vein at Christopher, who blathers on even after Patrick announces aloud he wants to murder "many more people."
Analysis
Patrick’s dealings with “Patricia” are a prime example of the novel’s experimental use of doubles and surreal approach to plot and character. Patricia, a character who is never mentioned outside of the “Date” chapter and may in fact not be real, seems to mirror and be mirrored by Patrick at every turn, even beyond their similar names. After she places him on hold, Patrick places her on hold; after she tries manipulating Patrick into her plans, he tries manipulating her into his. Patricia is crushed, just like Patrick would be, when they cannot go to Dorsia, raising the possibility that “Patricia” is a construct that Patrick imagines to cope with his own feelings of self-loathing and inadequacy, which seem to revolve symbolically around his own inability to gain entree into exclusive spaces like Dorsia.
Ellis destabilizes the identities of his characters through patterns of doubling and interchangeability—for instance, many characters not-so-discreetly have multiple partners—as well as pervasive instances of misrecognition and half-recognition. Surfaces are often deceptive, and characters are constantly described as resembling someone else: Patrick twice misrecognized women in the “Dry Cleaners” chapter, first when he calls Victoria “Samantha,” and second when he mistakes a Columbia undergraduate for a homeless woman. In the novel’s group scenes at Harry’s, conversations often proceed according to a haphazard sequence of mis-hearings and misunderstandings, which lead to arguments and breakdowns in communication.
Ellis describes Patrick’s fleeting encounter with Paul Denton at Harry’s in particularly ominous tones, during which Patrick is convinced that Paul Denton “knows something... maybe he was on that cruise.” The fleeting remark is vague but notable, especially given that Paul Denton is one of the main characters in Ellis’s previous novel The Rules of Attraction — a moody, intelligent, bisexual Camden College undergraduate who is implicated in an ambiguously sexual relationship with Sean Bateman, Patrick’s brother. Patrick’s fear of Paul Denton, who “seems panicked, convinced of something by my presence, as if he recognized me from somewhere,” seems to be motivated by a paranoid fear of exposure, which here (as in The Picture of Dorian Gray) is often implied to conceal currents of same-sex desire.
Though Patrick presents as heterosexual and is aggressively homophobic, he takes little interest in his girlfriend Evelyn or mistress Courtney, and is often enthralled by the aesthetic features of men, such as Paul Owen. Patrick’s unreliable narration makes it particularly difficult to discern his sexuality and relationship to Luis, who at times seems to wryly regard Patrick as a fellow closeted gay man. Though Patrick’s idol is Donald Trump, his obsession with clout and violent disavowal of the label of homosexuality even more closely resemble Roy Cohn, the closeted gay lawyer and mentor to Trump, dramatized on the stage in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America the same year that Ellis's novel was released.
In a 2016 interview, Ellis remarked that American Psycho’s true subject was “the dandification of the American male.” Ellis’s audacious stylistic decision to exhaustively inventory the designer names of each character’s article of clothing overwhelms even the names of the characters themselves, which become lost in a sea of decadent luxury and conspicuous consumption. Ellis satirizes the amorality of Reagan-era Wall Street by depicting conversations that fixate on minute details in corporate brands, such as Patrick and Scott’s duel over the quality of their compact disc players or Patrick’s preference for Diet Pepsi over Diet Coke, as taking place in a hellish, Dante-esque world filled with derelict, suffering people.
