Imperial Bedrooms

Starred review from March 29, 2010
Ellis explores what disillusioned youth looks like 25 years later in this brutal sequel to Less Than Zero
. Clay, now a screenwriter, returns at Christmas to an L.A. that looks and operates much as it did 25 years ago. Trent is now a producer and married to Clay's ex, Blair, while Julian runs an escort service and Rip, Clay's old dealer, has had so much plastic surgery he's unrecognizable. While casting a script he's written, Clay falls for a young, untalented actress named Rain Turner, and his obsession and affair with her powers him through an alcoholic haze that swirls with images of death, mysterious text messages, and cars lurking outside his apartment. The story takes on a creepy noirish bent—with Clay as the frightened detective who doesn't really want to know anything—as it barrels toward a conclusion that reveals the horror that lies at the center of a tortured soul. Ellis fans will delight in the characters and Ellis's easy hand in manipulating their fates, and though the novel's synchronicity with Zero
is sublime, this also works as a stellar stand-alone.

Bret Easton Ellis's sequel to LESS THAN ZERO is only four hours but seems longer. It's a vanity book about soulless, egocentric, cruel, hipper-than-thou Hollywood 30-somethings desperately clinging to their youth. Actor Andrew McCarthy does an amazing job turning these unlikable ciphers into real people. His reading is more passionate than the characters and is the saving grace of the novel, though not enough to save a meandering plot. Ellis uses a deeply flawed character to narrate the plot, and we see everything through his confused eyes. There is not a normal, decent human being in the entire book. Everyone is a dirtbag, and they have no guilt over their evil schemes, just a revulsion for everything in their sad lives, including themselves. You'll want to shower after listening. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine