Patrick Bateman
Patrick Bateman is a young professional who lives in Manhattan and works at an investment banking firm named Pierce & Pierce. Patrick is congenitally obsessed with wealth and status, dining only at the most exclusive restaurants and following extensive grooming and fitness regimens. Patrick is the eldest son of a family so wealthy that he does not need to work at all, yet chooses to anyway. Patrick's likes include the Broadway musical Les Miserables, Phil Collins, the Brian DePalma film Body Double, a fictional tabloid talk show named The Patty Winters Show, and hardcore pornography. Patrick is—or possibly imagines himself to be—a prolific serial killer who films himself raping and torturing his victims.
Evelyn Richards
Evelyn Richards is a financial executive and Patrick's girlfriend and on-and-off fiancée, with whom he ends things at the end of the novel. Evelyn and Patrick seem to have little in common beyond their jobs and the fact that they are both vain, self-absorbed, and materialistic. Evelyn is implied to be carrying on an affair with Tim Price, Patrick's colleague at Pierce & Pierce. Evelyn seems far more eager than Patrick to get married, and is crushed at the end of the novel when the relationship ends, even though Patrick mistreats her in various cruel ways over the course of the story.
Courtney Lawrence
Courtney Lawrence is another young urban professional, who is dating Patrick's Pierce & Pierce co-worker Luis Carruthers. According to Evelyn, Courtney is actually in love with her real estate broker. She also sees Patrick on the side, eventually becoming the object of Evelyn's ire. Like virtually all of the novel's characters, Courtney is materialistic and self-absorbed. Courtney mistakes Luis's desire for Patrick as an indication that he knows the two are having an affair. She takes lithium and has a deep fear that she will contract HIV.
Paul Owen
Paul Owen is one of Patrick's co-workers at Pierce & Pierce, and the object of Patrick's commingled envy and desire. Paul Owen is assigned to the prized Fisher account, and has a sartorial eye that impresses even Patrick. Paul mistakes Patrick for another Pierce & Pierce employee named Marcus Halberstam, which provides Patrick with a cover when he murders Paul one night with an axe. Although Paul's girlfriend Meredith hires a detective to no avail, another character named Harold Carnes later alleges seeing Paul in London, suggesting that Patrick merely imagined the murder.
Timothy Price
Timothy Price is one of Patrick's co-workers at Pierce & Pierce, who exemplifies the kind of pathological, self-regarding personality that thrives on Wall Street. The first character in the novel to speak, Tim is constantly touting his own credentials, and scorns the idea of welfare and charity. The novel implies that Tim is sleeping with Patrick's girlfriend Evelyn, who has the keys to Tim's vacation house, where she and Patrick later stay. Tim disappears toward the beginning of the novel, and re-emerges at the end with no explanation, causing Patrick to wonder about the mysteriousness of Tim's lifestyle.
Luis Carruthers
Luis Carruthers is one of Patrick's co-workers at Pierce & Pierce, and Courtney's boyfriend. Luis struggles emotionally to manage his concealed desire for Patrick, whom he confronts on multiple occasions over the course of the novel. Luis seems intuitively to sense that Patrick harbors same-sex desires, and mistakes Patrick's attempt to strangle him for a sexual advance. Though the object of Patrick's loathing, Patrick cannot physically bring himself to harm Luis, for reasons unknown. Luis finally tells Patrick that he is transferring to Arizona.
Craig McDermott
Craig McDermott is one of Patrick's colleagues at Pierce & Pierce, who has a competitive and rivalrous relationship with Patrick. Craig is constantly engaging in petty games of one-upmanship with Patrick, such as when he produces a news article about Donald Trump's favorite pizza to humiliate Patrick, who had criticized it the night before. Craig also tries to undermine Patrick's authority as an arbiter of fashion etiquette. Patrick at one point suspects that Courtney and Craig are sleeping together.
Jean
Jean is Patrick's secretary at Pierce & Pierce. Patrick repeatedly refers to her as "my secretary who is in love with me." Though Patrick is dismissive and controlling toward her, she seems flattered by his attention and curious about his inner life. Though Patrick offers to take her to dinner one evening, he refuses her advances at the end of the night. Toward the end of the novel, Patrick tells her that he is not emotionally available, though he is intrigued in spite of himself by Jean's optimistic spirit.
Sean Bateman
Sean Bateman is Patrick's younger brother, who is one of the protagonists of Ellis's previous novel The Rules of Attraction. In that novel, Sean Bateman is a sociopathic undergraduate at the fictional Camden College who is ambiguously linked to Paul Denton, who also appears in American Psycho. Though younger than Patrick, Sean seems more plugged into the trendy social scene of lower Manhattan, which infuriates Patrick. Sean and Patrick seem to only communicate when necessary, at the urging of their family's lawyers and accountants.
David Van Patten
David Van Patten is another young urban professional and member of Patrick's Pierce & Pierce entourage. David is often present with Patrick, Craig, and Tim at their usual haunts like Harry's and Nell's, engaging in their squabbles over fashion etiquette and women. Like the others, David is vain, misogynistic, and self-centered—though his confession that he owns a tanning bed at first seems to outrage Patrick, Patrick later asks Jean to procure a tanning bed for him.
