COVER STORY

Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis

For When: You just can't say goodbye

by Sam Kaplan

Published: Jun 16, 2010


(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Bret Easton Ellis' new book isn't just a sequel to Less Than Zero, the 1985 novel that catapulted him to fame while he was still in college; it's also part of a continuing midcareer self-re-evaluation that started with 2005's fascinating and frustrating Lunar Park, in which an entirely different Ellis (now married with kids in the New York 'burbs) was terrorized by physical manifestations of his own past literary creations.

Imperial Bedrooms returns to Less Than Zero's Los Angeles, where protagonist Clay is now a reasonably successful Hollywood screenwriter. He's working on a movie, seeing old friends and he's got a new girl, but he keeps getting texts from a blocked number that tell him he's being watched.

Like in Lunar Park, the basic question is: What exactly happens to the characters you create, decades after you create them? There's another question, too, though: What has happened to Ellis' writing in the 25 years since Less Than Zero? To some extent the style here consciously mirrors that of Zero, but now everything seems a little darker, like it's not as much fun as it used to be, and there's a new emotional intensity that Clay seemed too cool to reveal before. As usual, it's hard to tell exactly how Ellis relates to all of this, but those kinds of questions get boring after a while. No matter what, it's worth following Ellis down this rabbit hole.

Knopf, 192 pp., $24.95, June 15

Comments

test
by test on July 28th 2010 1:34 PM



Also In This Week's Cover Story Section

Throwing the Books at You
by Carolyn Huckabay
City Paper's Summer 2010 Book Quarterly

Hitch 22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens
by Natalie Hope McDonald
For When: You're getting crucified

Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell
by Jakob Dorof
For When: You're on a killing spree

Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann
by Emily Currier
For When: You're having girl problems

Packing For Mars by Mary Roach
by Shaun Brady
For When: Youíre finding your zero-G spot

At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream by Wade Rouse
by Josh Middleton
For When: You gotta be out in the country

Hollywood Hellraisers by Robert Sellers
by Janet Anderson
For When: The sheriff gon' come for you

The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais
by Gary M. Kramer
For When: You're all over the map

The Philadelphia Phillies: An Extraordinary Tradition edited by Scott Gummer
by Andrew Milner
For when: You realize you peaked in 2008

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
by Hadley Assail
For When: You're feeling hangry

Kraken by China Miéville
by Mark Cofta
For When: You've got ocean madness

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
by Molly Eichel
For When: Your wandering days aren't over

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
by Katherine Hill
For When: You've eaten your feelings

Zift by Vladislav Todorov translated by Joseph Benatov
by Matt Jakubowski
For When: The reds want you dead

Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross
by Char Vandermeer
For When: Your wife is driving you nuts

Made By Hand by Mark Frauenfelder
by Brian Howard
For When: You need just one fix

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield
by Julia West
For When: You're hungry like the wolf

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
by Justin Bauer
For When: You've fallen and you can't get up

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
by Andrew Thompson
For When: A tangled web you weave

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
by Rodney Anonymous
For when: Your rebel yell goes hoarse

 
 
ADVERTISEMENT