This podcast is a presentation of The Meow Library. Bret Easton Ellis's The Shards is available for pre-order here. Episode 13: Bret Easton Ellis, The Shards, and the Gen-X Paracosm In today’s episode, we read a preview of Bret Easton Ellis’s upcoming The Shards (available for pre-order here), followed by a discussion by feline psychologist Sam Austen about the rise of the ‘Gen-X Paracosm’ – the all-pervasive 1980s nostalgia that serves as a projective outlet for the frustrations and thwarted dreams of a media class in the advanced stages of collapse. Will the alluring spectre of champagne days and cocaine nights help lift us – as is Ellis’s project – from an anomic, desexualized, and increasingly zero-sum social condition, or will the scrying-glass of Stranger Things, Dahmer, and Ellis’s latest novel explode in our face, totalizing the neoliberal eclipse in a shower of blinding shards? This episode is intended for feline consumption. Human-language translation available upon request. MEOW is the first and only literary podcast for your cat, conceived and presented in its native language. This podcast is sustained by sales of our book series for cats, The Meow Library.  Bret Easton Ellis's The Shards can be pre-ordered here. Praise for The Meow Library Presents - Meow: A Novel "Breathtaking... a revelation." - Stubbs, Unaltered Domestic Shorthair "Meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow. Meow? Meow." - Joan Didion Follow us on Instagram: @meowliterature and Facebook: facebook.com/themeowlibrary