The whole John Edwards/Rielle Hunter scandal rolls on, including the late revelation that Hunter’s roots are murkier than originally thought.

Which is something of a disappointment, actually. Because her established backstory to this point was more than satisfying, as it melded ’80s nouveau literature with modern political machinations.

After writing Bright Lights, Big City, ’80s lit sensation Jay McInerney wrote a far less well-known book titled Story Of My Life. What I remember about the book (and why I remember it) was that it was done first person from the perspective of a slutty, drugged-out party girl named Alison Poole. I was writing a lot of fiction at the time, and always found it difficult to write female characters. So, to me, McInerney convincingly doing so for an entire book was a neat trick

It must have also impressed fellow ’80s lit sensation Brett Easton Ellis, because he wrote McInerney’s Alison Poole right into the cultural earthquake that was American Psycho. Being American Psycho, Poole’s scene was short and includes brutal sodomy-and the Kentucky Derby, if memory serves.

While McInerney and Ellis were friends, it always bothered me that Ellis had his fictional creation do what he did to McInerney’s fictional creation. It seemed the height of disrespect, especially since fictional characters are often based on real people. And McInerney admits that Alison Poole was directly based on his girlfriend at the time: Rielle Hunter. The same one who is now, 20 odd years later, tangled up with John Edwards.

If the rumors are true, Hunter doesn’t give Edwards the presidential gravitas a Marilyn Monroe would, but anytime you share a woman with the great Patrick Bateman, it’s got to be worth something.

So, if Alison Poole is really Rielle Hunter, then ipso facto, that would make John Edwards… Patrick Bateman? Just as well that Edwards’ Presidential bid went nowhere this year — think about carrying out a serial-killing career while fulfilling your duties as Commander in Chief.