Book Review - Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis

Synopsis:  Twenty-five years on from Less Than Zero, we pick up again with Clay. In 1985, Bret Easton Ellis shocked, stunned and disturbed with Less Than Zero, his 'extraordinarily accomplished first novel' (New Yorker), successfully chronicling the frightening consequences of unmitigated hedonism within the ranks of the ethically bereft youth of 80s Los Angeles. Now, twenty-five years later, Ellis returns to those same characters: to Clay and the band of infamous teenagers whose lives weave sporadically through his. But now, some years on, they face an even greater period of disaffection: their own middle age.

Clay seems to have moved on - he's become a successful screenwriter - but when he returns from New York to Los Angeles, to help cast his new movie, he's soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is now married to Trent, and their Beverly Hills parties attract excessive levels of fame and fortune, though for all that Trent is a powerful manager, his baser instincts remain: he's still a bisexual philanderer. Then there's Clay's childhood friend, Julian - who's now a recovering addict - and their old dealer, Rip - face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than he was in his notorious past. Clay, too, struggles with his own demons after a meeting with a gorgeous actress determined to win a role in his movie. And with his life careening out of control, he's forced to come to terms with the deepest recesses of his character - and with his seemingly endless proclivity for betrayal.

First Line:  "They had made a movie about us."

Random Quote:  "Rain convinces me that this is really happening.  Meghan Reynolds fades into a blur because Rain demands that the focus be on her, and because everything about her works for me I don't even realize it when it slips into something beyond simply working and for the first time since Meghan Reynolds I made the mistake of starting to care."

Review:   It's as fashionable to dislike Bret Easton Ellis as it is to like him - he's polarizing, if you will. He gets criticized for his interest in ultraviolence, for his experiments, for not experimenting, for being too cool for school, for being so yesterday. I like him. I like the way he writes, I like all the metafictional layers, I adore the snark and the studied irony. At his best he cuts like an Exacto blade - it bleeds a lot right away and doesn't hurt until later.
 
LA Freeway at night - Image via Wikipedia
I liked Less Than Zero when it came out. I even liked the movie, if only because it was fun to watch Andrew McCarthy shamble about all googly-eyed and sincere while Robert Downey, Jr. chewed up all the scenery around him portraying someone who was, essentially, Robert Downey, Jr. (how's that for self-referential work?). I liked the book because it successfully captured how damned boring everything and everyone was at the time along with all the stupid boring things people did to quit being bored. It wasn't as successful as it might have been and is a bit of period piece, but I still like it.

I was worried when I read that Ellis had revisited Less Than Zero - sequels are so often awful. I shouldn't have been. In a sense Imperial Bedrooms is what Less Than Zero would've been had its writer been more mature. Yes, the characters have aged, but the more things change the more they stay the same - it's all still incredibly boring and everyone does lots of stupid things that are just as boring to try to stop being bored - to try to feel something.

Both books share a certain feeling that seems rooted in L.A. to me. L.A. is all long drives to nowhere, looking out the passenger window at the lights going by at night, trying not to get off on the wrong exit (or trying to get back on the freeway if you do). It's surface shiny and bright and gritty right underneath the fingernails and if I was more of a car person I might really like that, but as it is I tend to want to admire it and its superficiality from a fictional distance. Ellis gets L.A. and I like that, too.

With nods to the first book, to the movie, to the city, and to Raymond Chandler this isn't a book where a great deal happens and it doesn't need to be. Its pleasures are in the small careful observations - the graffiti carefully drawn onto the back of the Walk/Don't Walk sign that passes by almost too quickly to see as the car slides into the night.

FTC Disclosure:  San Leandro Public Library

Rating:  Purple

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• Bret Easton Ellis (chuckpalahniuk.net)