American Psycho, the 1991 novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis, is a filthy, offensive, horrifying book. Throughout the course of the book’s daunting 400 pages, Wall Street investor and A-class yuppie Patrick Bateman blinds a homeless man, murders a dog, crucifies an old girlfriend with a nail gun, disembodies prostitutes, and performs cannibalism.

Even before publication, the book stirred controversy. Fearful of the book’s volcanic content, original publisher Simon & Schuster withdrew from the project in March, 1991. After Vintage claimed the rights and published the book later in the year, feminists like Gloria Steinem criticized the novel’s horrific treatment of women.

In Germany, New Zealand, and Australia, sales of the book are limited. Ellis even received death threats. Indeed, American Psycho is a novel where infamy proceeds craft, but despite the shock and alleged pretentiousness, Ellis presents a savage and vital satire, one that grows more relevant with time and should never be censored.

In the preface, Ellis quotes Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground:

“Such persons as the composer of these Notes not only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. I have wished to bring before the public, somewhat more distinctly than usual, one of the characters of our recent past/ He represents a generation that is still living out its days among us.”

This is a highly conscious allusion. Dostoevsky was an author who used his characters as representations of the greater Russian society. Raskolnikov, of Crime and Punishment fame, immediately comes to mind. Ellis strives for the same strategy, composing Patrick Bateman as a symbol of American excess. Bateman is young, radical, forward thinking, and so driven for what is new and exciting that he’ll stop at no limit to get it—even if murder is necessary.

In these dark and terrible territories, the book’s infamous violence takes form.

At first, the cruelty on display is sickening. Told from Patrick’s perspective, every gruesome detail of the murders—every stab, every slice, every blood gushing, flesh-dicing escapade—is shamelessly displayed.

After reading about the first few murders, I wanted to curl up in the fetal position and cry myself to sleep. But as the book progresses, Ellis uses a remarkable—and viciously clever—storytelling technique, dulling this effect and creating a shocking revelation.

Ellis writes the murder scenes with a great energy. Invigorated by his deeds, Bateman is excited at the cruelty he inflicts, and Ellis’ prose is equally contagious, containing white-hot passages of prose featuring beautiful language. Consider this sequence, in which Bateman tortures a former girlfriend:

“Perhaps on instinct, perhaps from memory, she makes a futile dash for the front door, crying out. Though the chardonnay has dulled her reflexes, the Scotch I’ve drunk has sharpened mine, and effortlessly I’m leaping in front of her, blocking her escape, knocking her unconscious with four blows to he head from the nail gun. I drag her back into the living room, laying her across the floor over a white Voilacutro cotton sheet, and then I stretch her arms out, placing her hands flat on thick wooden boards, palms up, and nail three fingers on each hand, at random, to the wood by their tips.”

This is a masterful paragraph. The word usage and grammar work in perfect syncopation, creating a driving rhythm to the paragraph that greatly increases the intensity of the scene.

Also, notice how Ellis includes clear references to the yuppie lifestyle, using terms like “chardonnay,” “Scotch,” and “Voilacutro.” Juxtaposed with the passages of murder are dead-on dissections of the yuppie routine, including soulless affairs, extensive partying, and endless conversations about all things materialistic, from fashion to bottled water.

The sharp satire is quite funny, but the passages grow interminable and tiresome. I wanted more meat and action. I casually wondered, with anticipation, when the next murder would take place—and I became a mouse, trapped in Ellis’ rhetorical brilliance.

Satire often adds humor and irony to normally despicable situations, but on special instances, we as readers become guinea pigs to the writers. Our emotions are manipulated and our morals putty, and as we turn the pages we transform into the very things we despise most. In American Psycho’s case, misogyny is the elixir. The same violence that shocked us in the opening chapters becomes strangely and intoxicatingly alluring.

And so it emerges why the violence of American Psycho is so appropriate. In the last 25 years alone, America has been front and center in 9/11, the War in Iraq, Iran-Contra, the Bosnian Genocide, and crisis in Pakistan. If Ellis is to present an honest portrayal of modern society, how can he possibly be accurate without including violence? Though Ellis offers a scathing analysis of modern America in all its materialistic excess, more importantly, he unflinchingly exposes our unhealthy addiction to violence.

American Psycho is a difficult novel that challenges its readers with its unorthodox content; however, this is a good thing. In today’s literary world, a writer must have a life-threatening addiction, a laughable imagination, or Oprah to find success. Good, serious literature has become somewhat of a rarity, and for that reason, books like American Psycho should be cherished. These are pieces of literature that survey our landscape and demand readers to answer difficult questions, and such books of obvious literary, artistic, and political value should never be censored.