"There is something about independence and finding your independence at a young age that's very, very positive," he says. "I do not see parental neglect as much as I see children who wanted to be adults and be left alone" He adds: "In a lot of ways, our parents helped us by doing that, not by being neglectful, but just by being adults"
Los Angeles, 1981. A group of beautiful, rich, high school students are playing adult in their absentee parents' empty mansions, fueled by lust and prescription drugs, and filled with fear and disaffection. This is the world of The Shards, Bret Easton Ellis’ first novel in 13 years, part auto-fiction, part horror. The provocative and polarising author joins Alex Preston, award-winning author and journalist, to speak about the emptiness of adolescence, the lawlessness of the 80s, and how it feels to look back at it all aged 56 in 2023.
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