The Shards: A Novel

Bret wants to work on his novel, but on Labor Day, 1981, he, Susan, and Thom drive to Malibu to see Debbie’s new horse, Spirit. Deborah and Bret are romantic partners, and so are Thom and Susan. Bret is Susan’s closest male friend, as she’s been confiding in him since 7th grade. Susan is the student body president, and Thom is the starting quarterback, so Bret presents them as all-American and popular. Bret has sexual feelings for Thom.

Thom’s parents are divorced, and his father lives in New York. Susan’s parents are together. Bret’s parents are together, but they’re traveling through Europe, so the family’s domestic employee, Rosa, looks after him. Deborah’s father, Terry Schafer, is a wealthy movie producer. Although he is gay, he remains married to Susan’s cantankerous mother, Liz Schafer, a former model who has alcohol use disorder. All four characters are only children, and so are Ryan Vaugn and Matt Kellner, who attend Buckley.

Bret swims naked with Matt in Matt’s pool. He remembers touching Ryan’s thigh while they watched the dystopian film Escape from New York (1981). Matt is an “outcast,” while Ryan is co-captain of the football team.

Juniors and seniors at Buckley are given leeway to bend the rules, so Debbie embraces cleavage, short skirts, and makeup. Susan hardly wears makeup. She thinks Thom is “uncurious,” but Bret remembers bonding with Thom over indie film directors and Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises (1926). Bret alludes to Thom’s attractiveness. Susan reminds Bret that he’s attractive and wonders if Bret wants to date Thom.

Stephen King is another influence on Bret. After he reread King’s novel The Shining, he started working on his own novel before he started a new novel that became Less Than Zero. Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining premiered in May 1980, and Bret saw it on a Saturday morning to avoid the crowds. He arrives early and becomes sexually captivated by a mysterious boy (Robert). The movie disappoints Bret, and he assumes he’ll never see the boy again.

On the Sunday before Labor Day, Debbie hosts a barbecue in the backyard of her Bel Air mansion. Her father, Terry, takes pictures and smokes marijuana. Bret and the other boys are used to Terry’s sexual advances. Bret notes the songs, including “Urgent” (1981) by Foreigner and “Our Lips are Sealed” (1981) by the Go-Go’s.

Due to Dr. Croft, Buckley’s affable principal, Susan knows that a “new guy,” Robert, will start school on Tuesday. He’s from Chicago, and he’ll live with his aunt, Abigail Mallory, in Century City.

Ryan arrives, and Bret thinks of him as a “cliche” since he fits the “closeted jock” trope. They “made out” and took off their clothes in August, but Ryan, who just got back from visiting his family in Michigan, wants to move forward cautiously. Debbie greets Ryan, who leaves the party.

There’s a screening of the romantic comedy Continental Divide (1981), but Bret, upset over Ryan, wants to leave. Before he departs, Debbie initiates sex. Bret isn’t aroused and doesn’t orgasm, but Debbie orgasms with Bret’s hand. Bret notes the band posters on Debbie’s wall and refers to Debbie as a “rich groupie.”

As Bret leaves, Debbie’s mother, Liz, accosts him. Liz is drunk and has on a revealing robe. Liz refers to Terry as her “faggot husband.” Outside, Bret notices Steven Reinhardt, Terry’s assistant, staring at him. Steven takes Bret’s picture.

Bret returns to the home invasions and the deceased teen girls. During the summer of 1980, Katherine Latchford was the first victim, and Sarah Johnson was the second. By the end of September 1981, Julie Selwyn’s deceased body appears on a tennis court, and authorities connect her to the other two girls. The LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) labeled the serial killer “the Trawler”—a “lewd joke”: Before Katherine went missing, her cat and the fish in her aquarium vanished; when authorities found Katherine, the Trawler had glued the fish into her vagina with rubber cement.

Home invasions coincided with the killings, and people connected them to the Trawler, who focused on victims with pets. He wore a black ski mask, a turtleneck, and jeans, and he’d call his victims and not say anything.

Bret reads Stephen King’s horror novel about a murderous dog, Cujo (1981). He thinks about his sexual relationship with Matt, whom Bret believes isn’t gay since he would have “sex with anybody.” Bret presents Matt as a “stoner” who “didn’t care.”

Matt lives in a pool house behind his parents’ regal home. On Labor Day afternoon, Bret and Matt have intense sex in the pool house and have a disjointed conversation about the “new kid,” Robert. Matt plays “Ghost Town” by the Specials (1981), and Bret notices that the fish in Matt’s aquarium are gone.

While listening to more music, Bret drives to Buckley at night. He sees a beige van and walks around the picturesque campus. He hears coyotes and notices beams from a flashlight focusing on the Buckley Griffin—a mythical creature with a lion’s body and eagle’s head and wings. The Griffin statue is in the school’s koi pond. As Bret drives away, the flashlight shines in his face. At home, he takes valium and turns on all the lights. Bret feels a new “presence” in Los Angeles.

In the morning on the first day of school, Bret works out in the gym he created in a small room next to the garage. He watches Good Morning America and reads the Los Angeles Times, which updates him on pop culture and the home invasions. He drives his father’s Mercedes-Benz 450SL, listens to Blondie’s “Call Me” (1980), and labels himself “so cool.” Ryan drives a Trans Am to school. He apologizes to Bret for leaving Debbie’s barbeque, and he advises Bret not to act like a “pussy.”

Ryan claims that he tried to call Bret twice, and Debbie is upset that Bret didn’t call her. Bret feels like an “actor,” and Susan announces that someone vandalized the Griffin statue. The person killed the fish and used them to give Griffin breasts and a penis. Blood surrounds the statue, and Bret is scared; he doesn’t like “the story” that the statue now represents.

The school has no cafeteria, so the students eat outside in the courtyard for lunch. Bret feels like the “fifth wheel,” and he hears music from a boom box before Robert introduces himself to Bret’s friend group. Bret is keenly attracted to Robert; he also believes something is “wrong” with Robert. Bret thinks Robert is the boy he saw last year at The Shining, but Robert claims he wasn’t there. Robert’s mother died in an accident, and he doesn’t get along with his stepmother or stepsister; instead of military school, he came to Buckley. Later, Bret and his friends learn about Robert’s attempt to die by suicide and his time at a psychiatric hospital.

Debbie thinks Susan is faking happiness with Thom, and Susan describes Robert as “electrifying.” In his car, Bret plays “Don’t Touch Me There” by the Tubes (1976). He follows Robert, who drives a black Porsche 911, but Robert pulls over and starts following him, so Bret goes to the Galleria, where he sees a beige van and browses the B. Dalton’s bookstore. Bret adores the work of the American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter Joan Didion.

While walking around the mall, Bret notices Robert flirting with teen girls. Robert has “confidence” and doesn’t seem like a “creepy stalker”; however, Bret senses something bad will happen to Susan and Thom. Later, he’ll learn that Robert is “dangerously ill.”

Robert confronts Bret. Robert came to the mall to buy clothes and doesn’t want Bret following him. Robert still denies that he was at The Shining. They discuss Matt, who has a loose “family connection” with Robert. Bret feels that Robert is referring obliquely to Matt and Bret’s relationship. Robert thinks that Susan is “hot.” When Bret talks to Robert, Robert feels that Bret is really talking to himself.

At home, Bret has a phone call with Terry, who jokingly asks what Bret is wearing and apologizes for Liz’s behavior. He wants Bret to write a movie script for him, but Bret can’t tell Debbie about the offer. Restless, Bret watches Expensive Tastes (1978), a pornographic movie that depicts gang rape and stars Joey Silvera, whom Bret “idealizes.”