The first words of the first sentence of the first chapter of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho begins with this phrase from Dante's The Inferno in capital letters:
"ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street..."
The appearance of these words as the beginning of the novel can be interpreted as indicative that the rest of the book portrays a Hell of sorts. Despite all the sadistic joys Patrick Bateman (the central character) indulges in throughout the book (without getting into whether or not he actually did, depending on how you look at it) in the end he's still as dissatisfied with everything as he was in the beginning, if not more so. This interpretation is also supported with the book's closing words ("THIS IS NOT AN EXIT"), implying that Bateman has not escaped what he has descended into: The book ends but Hell does not. This ties in with the satire of the extremes of the 1980s that the book is. The world may, more or less, have emerged from those extremes and vices but Bateman, as the personification of those extremes and vices, cannot escape from them. At least, not so easily.