Customer Reviews
Sex and death of the soul in L.A. - By: Dead Celeb, 23 Mar 2008 
I have to admit, when I first read this collection of short stories, having read a fair amount of Ellis other work, I thought 'Oh, here we go again, same old boring self obsessed rich kids doing drugs, Ellis is a one trick pony'. But this haunting book drew me in. Don't try & keep track of all the characters, one of the points is that they are almost anti-characters, losing their soulsin a sea of Valium & vodka. The writing is masterfully minimal, giving as much if not more attention to designer clothes than the essential selves-if there is any-of the characters.
While some stories miss the mark-real life vampires?...This book contains some genuine sublime moments.
Reading this book is like viewing the world by flicking through 700 tv channels, showing the alternate horror & banality of the Western world. Cool & detached. Enjoy.
A SUPERBLY PENNED VIEW OF THE DARK SIDE - By: Gail Cooke, 02 May 2005 
When a cast of vacuous, narcissistic, bronzed Californians indulgesin whatever brings them pleasure, Bret Easton Ellis is at his sardonic, cynical best. Culled from sketches begunin 1983 & eventually filling several notebooks, "The Informers" is more a tale of a group's flawed response to its culture than it is a picture of individuals.
Impossibly empty, the characters are predominantly male students who spend little time at their studies. Flouting their parents' checkbooks, they drive expensive cars, wear extravagantly priced clothes, dine at the trendiest spots, & indulgein most forms of chemical escapism.
Punctuated with dark metaphors, the author's text is hauntingly spare, offering no explanation for the characters' lives but simply presenting them. This leaves the readers to judge, gnash their teeth or gapein shocked surprise. There is room for shock. Asin Ellis' "American Psycho," some very unpleasant descriptions of mayhem & murder are included.
In an interview Mr. Ellis commented, "What I've always been interestedin as a writer is this idea of a group of people who seem to have everything going for them on the outside. Because of that, they have a lot of freedom. The theme of my fiction is the abuse of that freedom."
With his superior intellect & total mastery of his craft, Mr. Ellis presents his theme well.
- Gail Cooke
The Informers - By: Mr. F. Gibbons, 25 Nov 2002 
Well, I find it hard to describe this Easton-Ellis novel; yet again he captures the offbeat, sidetracking of a society so engrossedin wealth & drugs that it doesnt know its own place. Brett Easton Ellis conveys this well but one cant help feeling that it is an extremely disjointed novel, much akin to American Psycho, yet slightly less easy to follow. That would be the main criticism of an otherwise well written, largely captivating novel. Yet the characters did seem a little "rough around the edges" asin they werent quite as strong as other charactersin his other books such as the infamous Patrick Bateman of American Psycho
Not his best work - but have a look, anyway. - By: , 10 May 2002 Apparently this was writen before American Psycho but was held back because it wasn't thought of too highly by the publishers. After the overwhelming success of 'AP' this was given the go ahead some years later, the publishers certain that those who lapped-up his previous work would buy this without a second thought.
It makes me wonder: if this was his debut, what would we be saying about this author?
The Informers is a collection of short stories loosely held together by one or two characters who flitin & out of a few, & includes narratives from fading rock-stars, vampires, drug abusers, & charactersin the mould of 'Clay' from Less Than Zero - angst-ridden, self destructing teens.
It is sometimes hard to follow & difficult to make the connections between the many characters, but often Ellis sucks youin & spits you out with a ball of low-life going-ons & and the care-free abuse of under-age girls - by Vampires, no less. Yes, like his other work, sometimes it is a little hard to stomach.
Allin all I'd rank thisin last place of all his 5 works, but the rest are of such high quality that this is no fair reflection on this dark, humerous & sometimes-grotesque read.
Novel Stories - By: , 24 Feb 2001 An interesting point that has arisenin previous reviews is that some people treat "The Informers" as a novel & others as a series of stories. I know how they both feel.
I first read itin paperback, where there is no indication whatever that this is not a novel. I tried to keep track of the different narrators & different characters until my brain hurt (this wasn't helped by the fact that all the male characters are 20 years old, blond with green eyes & adonis-like bodies - just how Ellis likes 'em, I guess - & all the women are middle-aged, wasted & strung out on tranquillisers.)
I loved it anyway for what the blurb calls its "impressionistic blur" of narrative. That's another way of saying it makes your brain hurt if you try to keep track of them individually.
Then I picked up a hardback copyin a second-hand bookshop & it made it quite clear that this was a collection of stories. I breathed a sigh of relief, but as someone who is never happier than when he feels there's somethingin a book he's not quite getting, "The Informers" felt slightly diminished as a result.
Read it anyway. It's cool, mature, bleak, hilarious Ellis.
