One of the bad guys

Bret Easton Ellis has been in California for three months and thinks it is time to get back to New York to see his psychiatrist. "I feel brain dead here," he says, manoeuvring his Jeep through the streets of Sherman Oaks, the leafy Los Angeles suburb where he grew up and where his mother and sister still live. "I've been seeing a shrink on and off since I was about 13 or 14. I feel the need to talk to a doctor about stuff in my life that I wouldn't go into even with my closest friends. To me, that seems utterly normal." But very little about the boyish-looking, 39-year-old author is "normal".

He started writing fiction early. Aged 10, he produced the grim tale of a boy's struggle to survive after being turned into a pancake, and his first novel, Less Than Zero, was published in 1985 when he was barely 21. Originally written for a student assignment, it chronicles the listlessness of LA rich kids, their drug-taking and sexual incontinence; it shot Ellis to immediate literary stardom as "the spokesman of his generation".

Ellis has continued to startle and alarm his readers while mining the zeitgeist. More tales of spoilt college kids in his second novel, The Rules of Attraction, received generally poor reviews and low sales in 1987 - unabashed, Ellis was already writing his third. The publication of American Psycho in 1990 brought death threats, howls of outrage and whopping sales figures as the critics called for the "pornographic" examination of consumer decadence, with a smartly dressed serial killer as its protagonist, to be banned. His most recent novel, Glamorama, with its neat skewering of celebrity culture, received only a muted critical reception in 1994.

A long-time New York resident, Ellis winters in California, but this year he has extended his stay because he and his sister are planning a 60th birthday party for their mother. In addition, he is temporarily chained by the demands of Hollywood and an as yet untitled television series he has created about young Manhattanites that he "can't be bothered" to discuss.

"It's so boring," he sighs. "It's movie and TV stuff I got myself involved in. I wish I were more fascinated by it. I grew up here and all my friends' parents were in the television or film industries, but I never had any desire to write for Hollywood because it seemed such a depressing business. We'll see how it works out."

Despite his indifference, Hollywood has been good to him, even if the critics have not. Less Than Zero, American Psycho and now The Rules of Attraction, released in the UK next Friday, have all been filmed, and have all attracted mainly mediocre-to-poor reviews. Rules of Attraction is based on Ellis's observations of life at Bennington, the liberal arts college in Vermont that he attended. Directed by one-time Tarantino collaborator Roger Avary, it stars James van der Beek, the apple-pie hero of the television series Dawson's Creek, as a violent, misogynist drug-dealer. The film has variously been described as "a piece of filth", "feral and uncomfortable", and "barely interesting". Ellis found himself unusually disturbed by the film's savaging.

"Its commercial and critical reception in America has been extremely disappointing," he says. "Even though I had nothing to do with it. I've had failures in terms of movies I've written that never got made and books I've written that could have sold more copies; I've never paid much attention. But the reaction to Rules of Attraction really got to me.

"The movie is funny and mean and acidic and crazy and exciting. I love it. I really didn't expect critics to be so vehemently against it. I should have known better, I suppose, because all the complaints were moral rather than aesthetic. People said they hated the movie because the characters weren't likeable."

He pulls into the curb outside a liquor store, goes in and emerges with a packet of Marlboro Lights and a bottle of Vitamin Water. A little further on he stops by an almost deserted park, scattered with stone tables and benches. "It's a place I used to spend a lot of time in when I was a kid," he explains.

Seated opposite me, he talks of his life and the rumours, criticisms and suspicion he has attracted since Less Than Zero set the literary world on its ear, horrified parents and divided the critics. "A lot of people have always hated my books," he says matter-of-factly. "I have been painted as a dark, demonic figure." Then he smiles. "Even some of my best friends hate them."