Women’s Boycott of Ellis Book

As family physicians at a busy county hospital, we feel compelled to comment on an “American Psycho.”

In a field where we confront human suffering daily, we find it appalling that a large publishing company would succumb to capitalizing on the suffering and abuse of other individuals and furthermore, promote this endeavor as bona fide entertainment.

Such actions speak to the extent that powerful publishers are no longer able to differentiate between pathology and pornography . . . Ipso facto, should then the press print a comedy glorifying the Nazi annihilation of Jews and other Europeans? Also, ask the public whether it condones the burning of blacks by the KKK as authentic sport? The severe mutilation with chain-saws and power drills of women for the express purpose of sexual titillation equally deserves no place on public bookshelves.

We support a full withdrawal from the marketplace of material as psychologically damaging and literary unredeeming as an “American Psycho.” Indeed, anyone endorsing such work warrants psychiatric examination, in our opinion.

We challenge an “American Psycho’s” author and Sonny Mehta, the president of a division of Random House Publishing, to visit the overburdened wards of county hospitals around the country and see first-hand those sexually and physically abused women and children who have become the victims of other men’s fantasies.

V.N. GUERTLER MD

KATRINA GROVES MD

G. ROMANO MD

INGRID KJELLIN MD

JOHN ROMANO MD

JOHN L. REED MD

P. LOOFBOURROW MD

DAVID ROSENBERG MD

San Bernardino