The Shards

The Shards was first serialized as an audiobook read by Ellis through his podcast on Patreon.[1][2] The audio serial was published in twenty-seven individual installments,[3] released between September 6, 2020,[4] and September 6, 2021.[5]

On December 1, 2021, Ellis announced on Instagram that the manuscript of The Shards had just arrived for him to look over.[6] In May 2022, pre-orders for the book were made available.[7] It was published by Alfred A. Knopf on January 17, 2023.[8]

Reviewing the audiobook for The Times in 2021, Theo Zenou called it Ellis's "weirdest, most interesting work in years" and felt it was "rendered all the more absorbing" by the audiobook format.[1]

Kirkus Reviews wrote, "The usual issues with Ellis apply to this bulky novel: The flatness of the characters, the gratuitousness of the violence, the Didion-esque cool that sometimes reads as Olympian smugness. But as the story proceeds, it also becomes easier to admire Ellis' ability to sustain the mood."[9]

Publishers Weekly wrote that the book "feels like two disparate novels—an overly detailed, fictionalized memoir and a high gothic serial killer thriller—that never come together meaningfully or believably."[10]

Melissa Broder said in The New York Times that the book "invit[es] the reader more profoundly into the emotional realm of the protagonist" than Ellis's earlier works. While the length and looping narrative helped build suspense, "the reader wonders if the book could have been shorter and still achieved the same psychedelic, collage-like effect", she wrote. Broder concluded that "the novel’s climax and denouement ultimately fall flat".[11]

In April 2023, it was reported that HBO was in developing a television series adaptation of the novel. Ellis will write and executive produce with Nick Hall and Brian Young.[12]