Patrick Bateman works at the fictional Wall Street firm of Pierce & Pierce (also Sherman McCoy's firm in The Bonfire of the Vanities) and lives on the Upper West Side in the American Gardens Building (where he is a neighbor of actor Tom Cruise). In his secret life , however, Bateman is a serial killer who murders a variety of people, from colleagues to several prostitutes. His crimes, including rape, torture, murder and cannibalism, are described in graphic detail in the novel.Bateman comes from a wealthy family. His parents have a home on Long Island, and he mentions a summer home in Newport. His parents divorced sometime earlier, while his mother became sick and now resides at a sanatorium. His father grew up on an estate in Connecticut, and now owns an apartment in a New York hotel. His younger brother Sean attends Camden College (and is portrayed in the preceding novel and later feature film, Rules of Attraction ). Bateman attended Phillips Exeter Academy for prep school. He graduated from Harvard University in 1984, and Harvard Business School two years later and moved to New York City.According to his fiance, Evelyn, Bateman's father practically owns the company . As a result, he spends little time in his office and does very little work while he is there. While in the office, he appears to spend most of his time on trivial amusements such as crossword puzzles, doodling, watching television, listening to the latest pop music, and reading violent pornography.When not in the office, Bateman spends his free time nightclubbing, eating at trendy restaurants, working out, or visiting various health clubs and tanning salons. At home, he enjoys watching videotapes, particularly pornography and slasher films, and a fictional talk show called The Patty Winters Show. Bateman often uses the phrase returning videotapes as an excuse to account for the time he has spent torturing and killing his victims, as well as a convenient way to excuse himself from the company of others. Bateman also reads biographies of other serial killers, such as Ed Gein and Ted Bundy, frequently slipping in bizarre facts relating to them amid everyday conversations.Bateman is an avid music fan, particularly of mainstream pop and pop-rock. He specifically enjoys the music of Talking Heads, and he discusses at length Genesis, Whitney Houston and Huey Lewis & the News (there are whole chapters devoted to each of these three musical icons). He also listens to jazz (Dizzy Gillespie and Bix Beiderbecke).Patrick Bateman is an archetypal psychopath, exhibiting nearly all classic symptoms such as: the lack of a sense of guilt or remorse, a lack of empathy towards others in general, resulting in tactlessness, insensitivity, and contemptuousness, a tendency to make a good, likable first impression, a superficial charm, enabled by a low self-consciousness, and a willingness to say anything without concern for accuracy or truth. On several occasions he is shown to pattern his actions after people in his immediate vicinity, such as when he is preoccupied and unable to respond appropriately. It is not uncommon for psychopaths who try to blend in, to live two lives, often modeling their behavior on people they believe are normal.As written by Ellis, Bateman is the ultimate stereotype of yuppie greed: rich, shallow, and addicted to sex, recreational drugs and conspicuous consumption. All of his friends look alike to him (to the point that he often confuses one for another, and they often confuse him for other people), but he obsessively details every single feature of his clothes, stereo, workout routine, and business card. He is engaged to an equally rich, shallow woman named Evelyn. They can't stand each other, but they stay together for the sake of their social lives. He has a mistress on the side (the fianc Show less «