[I]f the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally retarded, which is easy, because these types of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people Say insipid stuff to each other. If what’s always distinguished bad writing – flat characters, a narrative world that’s cliched and not recognizably human, etc. – is also a description of today’s world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe that the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Ellis can write a mean shallow novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything.