Imperial Bedrooms

Product Details

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• Contingency: New
• ISBN13: 9780307266101

Description

Bret Easton Ellis’s debut, Less Than Zero, is one of the signal novels of the last thirty years, and he now follows those infamous teenagers into an even more desperate middle age.

Clay, a successful screenwriter, has returned from New York to Los Angeles to help cast his new movie, and he’s soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is married to Trent, an influential manager who’s still a bisexual philanderer, and their Beverly Hills parties attract various levels of fame, fortune and power. Then there’s Clay’s childhood friend Julian, a recovering addict, and their old dealer, Rip, face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than in his notorious past.

But Clay’s own demons emerge once he meets a gorgeous young actress determined to win a role in his movie. And when his life careens completely out of control, he has no choice but to plumb the darkest recesses of his character and come to terms with his proclivity for betrayal.

A genuine literary event.

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Donna Tartt is the author of the novels The Secret History and The Little Friend, and is currently at work on a third novel. Read her review of Imperial Bedrooms:

As Dante’s hell is circular, so is Bret Easton Ellis’s L.A. Everywhere in Imperial Bedrooms there is a sense of time frozen, time collapsed and time rounding back on itself in various diabolical ways. The novel marks a return to the characters of Less Than Zero, twenty-five years on, where it’s still the same old scene, camera flashes and sun-blinded gloss--only this time, there’s a persistent echo of unease, the sadness of moving in a young world while no longer young in it. Clay, casting teenagers for his eighties period film, ominously named "The Listeners," finds himself eyeing the sixteen-year-old actors dressed in the style of his youth and thinking they are friends of his, though of course they aren’t. His old friend Julian, affable as usual, is rumored to be running a teenage hooker service ("Like old times," as Clay comments acidly), while Rip, he of the trust fund that "might never run out," is in his middle age so disfigured from plastic surgery as to be practically unrecognizable, though he still has the whispery voice of the handsome boy he once was.

This is the most Chandleresque of Bret’s books, and the most deeply steeped in L.A. noir. No one is trustworthy; everyone is playing everyone else. Moreover, as in all Bret’s novels, fiction collides with reality, and fiction with fiction. Clay is being followed, for reasons he comes to suspect may have to do with the girl he’s fallen for. There are mysterious texts (from a dead boy? the previous tenant of Clay’s apartment?) a message written in red on a bathroom mirror: Disappear here. Running throughout are cocktail-party rumors of vans in the desert, ski masks, chains and mutilations, mass graves, a videotaped execution, though--as will be no surprise to any reader of Bret’s books---the rumors aren’t entirely rumors, in fact, the truth is rather worse than anything one has imagined. But what stays with one is not so much the concluding note of betrayal and horror as the mournfulness of the book, its eerie sense of stasis: clear skies, vacuum-sealed calm, the BlackBerry flashing on the nightstand in the middle of the night, everywhere the subliminal hum of menace, while the surgically-altered Rip brings his lips close to the ear and whispers in a voice so quiet as to almost be swallowed by the surrounding emptiness: Descansado. Relax.

(Photo © Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)

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Customer Reviews

A Cryptic and Disjointed Tale
To be quite truthful, I couldn't quite get a grip on what was going on in this novel, which seems comprised of cryptic, indecipherable dialogue and streams of consciousness punctuated by intermittent scenes of violence--some implied, some pretty graphic. Many bad things happen to many bad people, but it's difficult to tell who did what to who and why.

Maybe this book is about the depravity of Hollywood? Maybe it's about the evil underside of unrepentant sociopaths and narcissists? The whole point of this novel seems elusive to say the least, and I still can't quite grasp its significance.

2010-07-28 (Baltimore, MD) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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No Growth for Easton-Ellis
Maybe I just grew up, but my love for his books has definitely fizzled out since I read his others. I was ready to hurry up and finish this book and get on with my life. I really hoped to see more of Julian and felt like the character development was severely lacking. you would think after so many years a little more would be involved in the characters' development.

2010-07-24 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Very frustrated with AMAZON..
This is the 4th time I've reviewed this book and its not been posted. I'm not typing the whole thing out again. The book was ok...not Ellis' best. Is Amazon editing reviews or deleting certain ones for specific reasons. If this review actually makes it through...someone please leave a comment or something!!

2010-07-23 (USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Save the time you might have spent reading this to watch paint dry!
Right off the bat, I'll happily admit to being a huge fan of B.E.E's earlier work (through American Psycho), so when I heard that a sequel to Less than Zero was coming out, I was thrilled. I am the exact age of these disaffected characters, and wanted to see if their journey had in any way dovetailed mine. Erm - NO! All the nihilism of LTZ without any of the candy coated fun, combined with a sprinkling of American Psycho minus the brilliant touches (an entire chapter on the brilliance of Huey Lewis and the News? Loved It!) that made it the most gut turning black comedy of its day. This...well quite frankly, this is crap. I never confused the white bread whitewashed Clay of the film with the character in the book, but at least I cared a little for the Clay of the eighties. The Clay of the aughties is a narcissistic psychopath who isn't even interesting enough to carry off a chapter on shampoos (not that there was one - and frankly, this book could have used one).
If B.E.E. tries to pull this crap with a revisitation to either of the Fabulous Bateman Brothers, I might personally come out to either New York or L.A. and kick him square in his man parts. I am seriously appalled that this book appealed to anyone - the plot "twists" were flimsy, there wasn't a single likable or even interesting character left (save the ever-doomed Julian, and look what HE got for that effort) and I was seriously depressed that I spent three hours reading this. If this book had been an entree, I would've sent it back without hesitation. As many thumbs down as i can possibly be allowed, and a recommended horse whipping for the author. If you still want to shock us with random and meaningless violence, I recommend reading up on your Chuck Palahniuk, por favor. Until then, Bret Easton Ellis should have his word processing privileges removed.
Succinctly - I HATED IT!

2010-07-22 | insou2you (New Orleans, LA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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Blackened
Although it's Raymond Chandler whose name keeps coming up, I find that in its bleakness, this book recalls the novels of Horace McCoy. In particular, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" As well as "I Should Have Stayed Home." McCoy never went this far, however. This novel is devestating. I appreciated Ellis' return to brevity. This book is like a single drop of poison suspended from a hypodermic needle. I loved it.

2010-07-21 (Kennesaw, GA USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Less Than Zero

Product Details

• Notes: BUY WITH Boldness, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and care to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• ISBN13: 9780679781493
• Fettle: New

Description

Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait
of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a
world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or
hope.

Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of
limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago,
and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his
best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday
turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy
mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.

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Customer Reviews

LA
This is a very scary book! One of the earlier scenes in it has the protagonist hooking up with another man. (Both of the guys are drunk.)

After that, it's all about alienation (and drugs.) Clay's best friend from high school, named Julian, has become addicted to heroin and has to become a male prostitute to pay people off. In one memorable scene, Clay stays in a hotel room while Julian is hooking up with a man.

In another memorable scene, Clay is at his drug dealer's apartment and watches a snuff film, where two teenagers are raped and killed by a big black guy with a chain saw.

2010-06-29 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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You think Your Life Is Wacky
I dlon't know how I never read this book before, and probably wouldn't of had I not been sent the sequel. The story of a kid who comes home to LA from his college in New Hampshire and begins hanging out with his overpriveledged drug addicted friends reads like you're driving past an accident site-it's hard to look away. It's sparse, relentless, and frankly, a huge downer. And yet I found myself laughing at times, while alternately cringing the next. Ellis seems to have a fascination with violence and sex. And generally the two merge a lot in this spare ( under 200 pages) book. I've just begun the sequel, which revisits this dysfunctional band of misfits twenty five years later. Good times indeed!

2010-06-26 (Los Angeles, CA USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Disappear Here
I think that this book is often under-estimated. The reality is that this book is not for everyone -- the rampant drug use, the casual sex, the snuff video. I first read this book about about ten years ago. I finished it quickly and put it back on the shelf without thinking about it for years. Recently (mostly in anticipation of its sequel, Imperial Bedrooms) I picked it up to re-read it, and a few days later (a subway read, give me a break) I have a new-found appreciation.

People complain about the characters being more of a sketch than a fully-imagined creation -- we don't care about them, we don't know them, yada yada yada. I don't want to put words into Mr. Ellis' mouth, but it seems as though this was the author's intention. During this period of time (not to say that it isn't unlike today in certain respects), people's relationships with one another were surface level in certain circles, particularly in fame, celebrity, trust-fund hipster circles, etc. Ellis seems to be making a statement of the isolation and disconnect these characters feel, and their attempt to find a connection with others and themselves through drugs, materialism, and casual sex. Indeed, if he were to fully-describe all of these characters -- put some meat upon the bones, so to speak -- the very point of the work, it seems, would be defeated.

These characters behave in ways that, to many/most of us, seem shocking and more depressing and add to this general atmosphere of isolation. The sparse dialogue and description makes it even more so. When confronting his sister, who, he thinks, is younger than fifteen, about why he keeps his door locked, the narrator says, in front of their mother, that he keeps his door locked because his sisters did all of his blow. The section ends with his sister responding, "That's bulls*&t. I can get my own cocaine." These images of young kids doing drugs, sleeping with each other, etc. are meant to shock us. Some may say that this intentional attempt to shock is what turns them off from reading this, but these people are failing to see the message at issue (or they simply don't care about it). Some may scream blasphemy, but I don't care: reading this novel reminded me of Hemingway in its minimalist style. It says what it needs to say - no more, no less. The moral of the story is clear, and, because of its effective style and Ellis' masterful construction of dialogue, all the more powerful.

Ellis recently said (meaning, around the time Lunar Park came out) that the book was not perfect but "valid." By valid, I think -- again, without putting words in his mouth -- that he means he captured the feeling of that time period within this particular niche group of kids and their parents. I tend to agree with him.

This book is highly recommend for those who are not easily offended. It's not meant to be a masterpiece, but it is effective in what it seeks to accomplish. Focus on the information it conveys and the means it uses to convey such information. Then focus on the dialogue. This work was meticulously crafted, and any serious reader should be able to appreciate that.

2010-06-25 (NY, NY USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Less Than Zero = Less Than a 10
Last week, Bret Easton Ellis' sequel to Less than Zero hit bookshelves across the country to the delight of Ellis' fans and many critics. While I enjoyed the film American Psycho, I had never read anything by Ellis and was disappointed that I hadn't done so. But with the sequel coming out, I felt that it was time! I have read numerous books on sex, drugs, and disobedient teens so I had limited expectations for this novel. Overall, I thought that the novel was decent (and certainly impressive that he was only 20 when he wrote it) though had grown a bit stale with age. I can understand it's inclusion in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die because it completely optimized the time, culture, and lifestyle of the 1980s. Many have gone as far as to describe it as the Catcher in the Rye of the generation x-ers. I believe such a comment is a great overstatement, for though it was good and an accurate depiction of the time, I doubt that high school students will be reading it in another 25 years (or even now).

The novel follows Clay on his return home to LA for Christmas break after being away at college in Vermont. Before moving to Vermont, Clay was a spoiled rich boy whose idea of a good time was drinking, drugging, and getting laid by either men or women. Though he had a steady girlfriend, neither of them were exclusive. When Clay returns to this group of friends, who stayed in the area to go to college, he realizes that his fast and hard living is not as fulfilling as it had been. He tries to grapple with his broken family life, heal the rift and poor feelings with his girlfriend, and save his best friend from physically and emotionally killing himself. Yet, things do not go as planned and flashbacks to a happier time in his childhood make him wonder if this life in LA is what's best for him.

Clay is part of the MTV generation who are narcissistic and self-destructive to the extreme. Therefore, the majority of the characters are not likable. In fact, I found myself having difficulty even finishing the book because I was so appalled by their behavior. When I first picked up the book, I thought that I would be ale to fly through the 224 pages. However, the subject matter and disgusting characters made me put down the book more than I would have liked. Though it was interesting, the novel does not seem to have stood the test of time. When it was released, rich kids were pissed that their once secret habits were suddenly out in the open. Yet as time passed, the 1980s became publicly known as the age of heroin, MTV, cocaine, poor parenting, and vanity. Thus making this novel proof of the values during that time but lacking in bringing any new insights to the table.

Reviews state that Imperial Bedrooms will show the characters where they are today and update the reader on each of their lives. Personally, despite some positive reviews, I am no longer interested in these characters. I did not find them to be dynamic and over the past couple of days I have almost forgotten them entirely. Overall, it's worth I read if you have the interest and ability to appreciate it for the time in which it was written.

2010-06-22 | book lovah (Massachusetts USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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"Welcome to LA" for 80s kids
This old piece of 80s pop culture, focusing on the lives of rich, apathetic college-age kids in LA in the 80s, will no doubt get some attention again with the recent release of Ellis' latest, "Imperial Bedrooms," which follows the characters into middle age. So, let's get straight what "Less than Zero" is and what it is not. It is NOT great literature or even particularly good writing. Stringing together long namechecks of 80s tunes, fashions, stores and the like reads more like extended product placement than writing. None of the characters are what one would call "developed." Indeed, if all the authors who wrote about disaffected 80's youth (Mcinerney, Coupland, Chabon and a boatload of others - so many that they had their own satirical "Cliffs Notes" volume at that time) Ellis's sparse, deadpan style was the most lacking in writerly devices. The result is sort of like seeing "The Stranger" badly acted out by a bunch of hungover and cracked-out 19-year-olds who can't even feel the sensations inherent in their everyday actions of smoking, scoring, drugging, screwing, driving expensive cars fast, dressing up, having abortions, prostituting themselves, watching uber-realistic snuff films, passing out, et cetera. This book is populated by zombies and unlike other "teenage wasteland" type books, none of the characters, not even Clay the protagonist, have any sorts of talents, feelings, poetic hopes or dreams that indicate that they might escape this emotional desert any time soon. Clay and his girlfriend Blair seem to be dimly aware that something is really haywire with themselves and their circle of friends, but have no idea how to fix it or even define it.

Also, "Less than Zero" does NOT have a plot. Clay & company just go about their daily business, which normally involves some form of sex and getting high followed by the kind of Deep Thoughts about life you'd expect from a rich kid in rehab, a la Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer." The movie ruined the concept, in my opinion, by trying to graft a plot onto it about the fall from grace of Clay's childhood friend Julian. In the book, sure, Julian is a mess, but he doesn't seem particularly any more messed up than his peers. It's more a question of what kind of mess do you want to be, than whether you will be one.

While I can't give this book more than three stars due to the lack of writing and lack of a plot, it's important to note that Ellis's device, at least for this initial book, worked well to portray a vapid, apathetic cultural and emotional wasteland. The characters are for the most part emotionally dead, drugged, traumatized; they've taken the graffitied advice to "Disappear Here". The result is sort of a "Welcome to LA" for very young people on drugs. Everybody hsa a little hustle to play, no one is particularly happy about it. Whether you get all the way to the end of the book after grokking the concept in the first 50 pages or so depends on how interested you are in reading endless streams of 80s trivia.

While I can't give this more than three stars given the lack of real writing or real plot, it still can be a "guilty pleasure" read for those who like the 80s or grew up during them. The characters often say and do things that sound so stupid as to be vaguely entertaining. The theme of the corrupt Hollywood rich can also make for a fun beach-blanket afternoon, especially for those of us who are most definitely not rich and wouldn't think of hopping in our Porsche and speeding down to the mall to buy 10 pairs of designer shoes on Daddy's credit card. One might end up chuckling a bit too much at a part that Ellis may have intended to come off serious, but then again, it's hard to tell whether Ellis really meant this book seriously or if he exaggerated everything into glamour and excess in hopes of making a sale.

2010-06-20 (Maryland, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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The Rules of Attraction

Description

Set at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England at the height of the Reagan 80s, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students with no plans for the future--or even the present--who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle. Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at self-consciously bohemian Camden College and treats their sexual posturings and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion while exposing the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.

Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor who split for Europe months ago and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letter to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus, and Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance.

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Customer Reviews

"Less than Zero" Goes to College
I held off reading this sequel to "Less than Zero" for quite a long time because, while the antics of a bunch of drugged Hollywoodsters had some entertainment value to me, I could not see the joy in perusing another trademark Ellis work about screwed-up rich kids at a WASPY Eastern liberal arts college (which I believe was supposed to be a thinly disguised portrayal of Bennington). Most any college is bound to be a Petri dish of teen angst, unsettled yearnings and weird sexual encounters (or lack of such encounters), so why bother to write yet another book about people pouring their hearts out over same? It's not glamorous or trashily mesmerizing like a book about LA. The main character, Sean Bateman, is not Clay from "Less than Zero" (who makes a cameo appearance in "Rules" as the hip mysterious kid in sunglasses from California) but Sean is written so that he and Clay are practically interchangeable in terms of thoughts and motivations.

When I did eventually (and out of sheer boredom) read "Rules", I had to give Ellis a little credit for at least introducing a bit of a plot structure. "Rules" is about a love triangle, or possibly even a love hexagon. A frumpy girl named Mary pursues handsome Sean, with whom she's already created an entire fantasy romance in her mind. Through a mixup, Sean thinks Mary's love note to him comes from Lauren, an art student who's actually in love with an older guy named Victor and thinks about him all the time like Mary does Sean. Victor, oblivious to Lauren's affections, is off having rich-kid adventures in Europe such as getting mugged in the red-light district of Amsterdam, as he bops from country to country in search of his crush object, a girl named Jamie who he thinks is over there somewhere. Meanwhile, bisexual Paul, who is probably the closest thing Ellis has ever written to a developed character with a moral sense, has also fallen for Sean, though he senses it's hopeless.

Somewhere in the midst of this melee, punctuated by numerous drunk college parties and a graphic suicide in a bathtub, Sean and Lauren manage to fall genuinely, it seems, in love for a couple of chapters, but can't sustain it. This isn't surprising since they have virtually no role models to follow in developing a long-term relationship. Plus everyone in the book is the sort of jaded hopeless romantic who is so hungry for a connection that they see a pretty face and proceed to glom all of their dreams, hopes and fears onto said person without really getting to know them. It's hard to see how Sean is that much more attractive than his peers so as to have 2-3 people fall madly in love with him. It's also hard to see what's so great about Lauren that Sean is compelled to pursue her. Then again, many college-age people have developed raging crushes on another based solely on looks or the desire/ fantasy of being "in love", so Ellis's rich kids are more relatable here than they are in some of his other books. Nevertheless, the story still ends on a bum note since Sean and Lauren don't seem to learn or grow as a result of their love affair; instead they simply behave like planets that entered each other's orbits for a brief time before zinging back on their own pointless trajectories. The whole "missed connections leading to unexpected results" plotline, such as Sean mistaking Lauren, who he really hadn't paid much attention to before, as the author of a note left for him, is interesting to follow, but a lot of the book is taken up by long tedious musings, such as Lauren's story of drunkenly losing her virginity as a freshman at a college party and Sean's tale of a failed past love affair with a "hippie". You need to read the book with a sense of humor or you'll be wishing all these brats would just grow up already well before the end.

2010-06-20 (Maryland, USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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The Rules of Attraction & the postmodern condition
After seeing the film adaption of The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis, it was apparent that his novel had to be read to match the fascination that invoked me in the first place with the initial viewing of the film. And to my absolute joy, for lack of better words, the novel was just as great the film. The novel by Ellis, opens just as the flim does, making it more than clear that director and writer Roger Avary did a spot on job when it came to staying true to the text. I, myself, find the humor in that people are complaining about how "pages are missing". Um, yeah. There are no pages missing, that is simply how Ellis decided to commence the novel. I bet that same person complained that some ridiculous character "Betrand" had a whole chapter in French. The characters are eccentric and humorous, completely candid, and asbolutely absurd, all of which adds to momentum of wanting to know them more. All in all, the novel by Ellis is a great piece of work, completely appropriate for the time it was written (1987) and couldn't be anymore accurate to the typical scene of a small liberal arts college in New England(trust me, I would know having attended a small liberal arts college in New England myself). Certainly worth the buy, and if anything it is worth picking up to see the "missing pages" in the beginning and the "typo" in the end. Did I just spoil that for you? Sorry. Go and give it a read already.

2010-06-15 | Sincerely, J (Boston,MA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Rules of Attraction
Reading this book was just like watching the movie. In fact, it made me desperate to watch the movie again.

2010-06-03 | The Book Hoarder (Denver, CO) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Pointless, but that's the point!
Firstly, to all the people saying "the first 12 pages are missing, I got ripped off" don't understand that this is intentional and that the book is suppose to begin mid-sentance. So don't worry if you buy this book and it starts off like that, it was meant to be.

Secondly, incredible book. For anyone who enjoys painfully honest stories about life then you will love The Rules of Attraction. The novel exploits 'relationships' and their futility by showing the mixed opinions of three selfish college students in a love triangle.

Ellis narrates the characters dialogue and thoughts in an incredibly realistic way which made me individually feel as if the events were being acted out as if was reading them. The whole book is like a film playing out in your brain.

For anyone who liked 'American Psycho', this book plays out in a very similar fashion with a definite feel of nihilism and pointlessness that brings meaning.

Just read the novel, it's amazing, it's among my all time favorites.

2010-01-29 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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defective product
Just received this book and a copy of Less than Zero. Discovered that "Rules" is missing several pages at the beginning....perhaps this is intentional?

First time, very first time, in hundreds of items ordered books , CDs and other stuff that I've received anything defective.

Looked over the return policy. LOL, for the ten bucks this cost I'm going to toss it in the paper recycling and buy a copy at a "bookstore".

I don't visit "bookstores" much anymore because I buy nearly all of my books from amazondotcom. Well,Isee there's an advantage after all. It's just not worth it to package this to return....and order another? Wull,, (as you younger people like to pronounce it ) Wull, da, it might be defective and missing pages too.

Note to Amazon. No, not gonna do it.....buy electronic book downloads.

2010-01-27 (Portland, Oregon) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 1

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Glamorama (Vintage Contemporaries)

Description

"Arguably the novel of the 1990s...Glamorama should establish Ellis as the most fearless and ambitious writer of his generation...A must read." --The Seattle Times

The author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero continues to shock and haunt us with his incisive and brilliant dissection of the modern world. In his most ambitious and gripping book yet, Bret Easton Ellis takes our celebrity obsessed culture and increases the volume exponentially.

Victor Ward, a model with perfect abs who exists in magazines and gossip columns and whose life resembles an ultra-hip movie, is living with one beautiful model and having an affair with another. And then it's time to move on to the next stage. But the future he gets is not the one he had in mind.

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Glamorama is a satirical mass-murder opus more ambitious than Bret Easton Ellis's 1990 American Psycho. It starts as a spritz-of-consciousness romp about kid-club entrepreneur Victor Ward, "the It boy of the moment," an actor-model up for Flatliners II. Ellis has perfect pitch for glam-speak, and he gives nightlife the fizz, pace, and shimmer it lacks in drab reality. Anyone could cite the right celeb names and tunes, but like a rock-polishing machine, his prose gives literary sheen to fame-chasing air-kissers. He's coldly funny: when Victor's girl tries to argue him out of a breakup, she angrily snorts six bumps of coke, stops, mutters, "Wrong vial," snorts four corrective doses from whatever she has in her other fist, then objects to a rival at the party wearing the same dress she's wearing.

You had to be there; Ellis makes you feel you are. But such satire is a very smart bomb targeting a very large barn. Models' status anxiety doesn't merit Ellis's Tom Wolfe-esque expertise. Glamorama gets better when Victor gets drafted into a mysterious group of model-terrorists who bomb 747s and the Ritz in Paris, wearing Kevlar-lined Armani suits. Oh, they still behave like shallow snobs, pronouncing "cool" as if it had 12 o's. But now when somebody swills Cristal, it's apt to be poisoned, to horrific effect, which Ellis expertly, affectlessly describes. His enfant-terrible debut, Less Than Zero, aped Joan Didion. Now Ellis has grown into a lesser Don DeLillo--and that's high praise. --Tim Appelo

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Customer Reviews

Quite a ride...
Wow. This book grabbed hold and would not let go. Part one is typical decadent name dropping Ellis fare and as such was an entertaining if somewhat depressing take on the young, the beautiful, and the oh so superficial.
Part two has the main character, Victor Ward, on a ship heading to England, where he will find himself intertwined in another world of beautiful people, only in addition to being all he is used to, they happen to be terrorists. This makes for some very interesting reading but the view of the story shifts to one where it is told as if it were being filmed, with Victor being an actor and getting caught between two films being produced at the same time. This becomes very confusing for the reader as it is unclear if Victor has become delusional or if in fact he is an actor. The scenes are often raw and decadent and always strewn with confetti. It is always cold. His limbs are always going to sleep. Is Victor dead? Is this some dream stage? I wish I knew. One feels the narrative must be filled with metaphors, but for what?
Part three answers some suspicions then opens the door to a whole slew of new questions, particurally from where Victor actually is when reciting his story.
Yes, a very entertaing read for the most part but be forwarned there is some very disturbing stuff as well, but then again this should be expected when considering a book by Bret Easton Ellis. I loved the book but was left disappointed with how it ended.

2010-07-24 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Great. Just Great.
This is an excellent example of the stereotypical world that we live in. Specifically that of the late 1990's, and the celebrity culture that we as a society have come to exist within.

I had to read this for a college course on Modern American Fiction.
It was an excellent read, and I would like to sit and read through it agian, without having to take notes and examine the text, and read it as it was meant to be, as a novel for enjoyment, and as a comtemporary commentary on our society.

2010-05-27 | jared kane (Pennsylvania) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Ellis is still strange and interesting.
Really a great read. the story takes you on a rollercoaster ride of time and places... first half is ok and then..BAM!, YOUR A WITNESS TO REAL TERROR AND ESPIONAGE...AND FASHION...YES. fashion.

2010-03-03 | Joshenstein (Joshenstein) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Did we read the same book?????
OMG, this book was awful. Can we give negative stars? I think Bret Ellis actually owes Amazon stars for selling this crap. The characters are completely unlikeable, irrelevent and vapid at best. The plot is completely, utterly ridiculous. The dialogue is confusing and nonsensical. Trees gave up their lives for these pages!!! They lived in vain if this is the result of their time on earth. I love love love stories about celebrities, Hollywood, models, etc....I love suspense and intrigue...I love to read...but this was a pile of mess. Read the dictionary. Read the comics in your local newspaper. Read the back of your cereal boxes. Read ANYTHING, but don't read this.

2010-01-05 (League City, Texas USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 1

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not even superficially profound
A terrible disappointment. Hard to understand how Ellis could write such a bad book. Making mistakes he so deftly avoided doing in the past. There are plenty of jokes, but this time they aren't funny. The 'social message', boring, is stated with the subtlety of a battering ram. Dialogues aren't merely dull, they're simply unnatural, implausible (and I never would have expected that from Ellis). It seems some people actually.. um, liked it! Well, if you're planning to buy this book, maybe you'll be lucky. I suggest reading 10-20 pages before clicking the 'buy' button and I hope Ellis' next book (or the one after) will be great.

Mmmmmm, if this book would be re-edited and issued as a long short-story, perhaps 60 pages long, it might make for a really cool book.

2009-12-29 | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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Lunar Park

Description

Bret Ellis, the narrator of Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past. His attempts to save his new world from his own demons makes Lunar Park Ellis’s most suspenseful novel.

In this chilling tale reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.

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