Frankenstein's monster is so passé. Especially when you consider all the strange new creatures that scientists have breathed into being in the two centuries since Mary Shelley’s “wretched devil” took its first lumbering steps. This Halloween, retire your Frankenstein costume and dress up as one of these brave new beasts instead.
Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) If you thought Gordon Gekko was the undisputed champion of corporate psychopathy, then think again because Bateman makes Gekko look like the angst-ridden, self-harming treasurer of a Mormon prayer group. Impeccably well versed in business couture, Bateman’s Achilles' heel is his penchant for prostitutes and chainsaws -- and for his “unchivalrous” amalgamation of the two. (That and his predilection for Huey Lewis.)
My candy story begins with an oft-told tale I call “The Jelly Bean Incident.” I relate the story at length at the beginning of Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure, so I’ll just give you the punch line here: when I offered a few jelly beans to a little pre-school friend, his parents flipped out. I mean, you-might-as-well-give-him-crack flipped out. It was a tense moment. What I don’t talk about in the book is what happened next.