The latest novel by Bret Easton Ellis (“Less Than Zero,” “American Psycho”) is a mystery cuddled with horror and wrapped in a satirical candy shell.

In “Lunar Park,” the reader is introduced to Ellis when he is living a decadent life as a young, successful author.

This is when it gets tricky: Ellis, the character in the book, is not Ellis the author. Some of the same things happened to them, but they are not one person – or maybe they are. Only Bret Easton Ellis can answer that question.

The writing in the first 15 pages or so seemed overblown and superfluous.

Paragraphs about possessions and the women he dated are tiring, but were indicative of the excessive lifestyle Ellis was sinking into.

Ellis falls easily into a “fantasy bachelor’s life” full of Armani suits, VIP tables, gossip columns and celebrity. His excessive lifestyle inevitably brings Ellis to drug addiction and alcoholism.

Ellis finally hits the bottom after the death of his father. The two had a volatile relationship and hadn’t spoken in the months prior to the elder Ellis’ death.

In an attempt to turn over a new leaf, Ellis marries the mother of his young son and tries to become a family man.

Ellis’ drug and alcohol problems compound the difficulties he’s already having comprehending the complexity of family life and getting to know the son he ignored for eleven years.

His substance abuse leads to situations with questionable believability.

As the line between Bret Ellis the writer and Bret Ellis the family man become hazy, the reader begins to understand what the author meant when he says a writer’s life is “a maelstrom of lying.”

An underlying question the book asks is: What is real? How much of our lives is a lie we tell ourselves?

Ellis’ clever use of himself as the main character in the novel further blurs reality and fiction. Just as the character Ellis in the book became confused with the difference between Bret Ellis “the writer” and Bret Ellis “the family man,” the reader has no way of knowing where Ellis the author and Ellis the character begin and end.

The world in the novel is eerily familiar (people are distracted by random violence; terrorist attacks, bombings and shootings are common) but one hopes while reading this that real people aren’t really as heavily medicated and violent as these characters.

Ellis refers to a “never ending war” when his eleven-year-old son asks him, “Am I going to be drafted?” The child knows, chances are, the war will still be raging when he is of age.

It is alarming how when there is mention of the events going on in the world people don’t seem to know where the war is or what it is about, though since it is mentioned so subtly the reader doesn’t realize the implications, or the similarities to present day situations.

The novel is a satire on life in a country where people are prescribed dozens of drugs from birth, 10-year-old children are assigned books like “The Lord of the Flies”, and bleak statistics such as 8.5 percent of children under 10 attempt suicide are discussed at PTA meetings.

It is also a grim story of fathers and sons and the chasms that develop among family members who cannot communicate.

“Lunar Park” is definitely worth the read. Anyone who is exhausted by the almost desperate efforts of society to ensure people agree on certain rules and acceptable behavior when society is in an unacceptable state can appreciate the story of a man coming to this realization.

“Lunar Park” was published in August, 2005 by Knopf.