Imperial Bedrooms [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Bret Easton Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 15, 2010

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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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From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. 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. (June)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (June 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307266109
• ISBN-13: 978-0307266101
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6.5 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (143 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bret Easton Ellis is the author of five novels and a collection of short stories; his work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He lives in Los Angeles.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 59 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mesmerizing But Flawed May 4, 2010

By Mr. August VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

If you read Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis presents the sequel in a sharp, enthralling short novel. If you didn't read Less Than Zero it's OK, you will be introduced to the same characters but they are now adults. Set in Hollywood, Easton assures us that the movie industry scene has not changed. Narrated in a present tense stream of consciousness, Clay, our wealthy screenwriter, returns to L.A. during Christmas to supposedly help cast for his movie, The Listeners (The Informers?). He meets up with his old crowd, his good friend, Julian, old lover, Blair and ex-dealer, Rip. These teen-agers have not changed; they simply turned into middle-aged insecure, wandering souls. So it's again a blurry state of what are they really doing, what are they really saying?

The beginning of the story moves slowly and then it hits. As Ellis builds the plot through Clay's haze of alcohol and seduction, the story works itself into a mystery with no boundaries. Easton works his magic through a wannabe starlet, Rain Turner, a beautiful, no-talent actress. Well, she wants to be an actress and will do anything, and I mean anything, to get a callback. Clay who will do anything to get what he wants plays the game and strings her along with promises of a reading. It's not joyful. The sex, the extreme violence and the Hollywood scene are real; any talent or courtesy is strictly bogus. Ellis teaches us that Hollywood equals conspicuous consumption. The behavior of Clay and his crowd demands overindulgence in alcohol and ambition. Clay's drinking is evident in almost every scene, whether it is fantasy, reality or the devil. But the meaning is hard to capture and at some point toward the last 50 pages, I stopped trying. If I have to work too hard to decipher the meaning, maybe the timing of a character's epiphany is not meaningful.

I read the book in two sittings - I wanted to see where Ellis was going and the end of the book is shocking in its violence and denouement. He is a genuine writer with original ideas, and I have not read anyone who can match his style. His run-on sentences were often annoying and over the top, but his ability to set a tone is unmatched.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars When Indifference Has Turned To Cruelty--Older, But No Wiser May 10, 2010

By K. Harris HALL OF FAMETOP 10 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I was a bit surprised to hear Bret Easton Ellis had chosen to revisit the characters first introduced 25 years ago in "Less Than Zero." It is, after all, one of the more quintessential novels about disaffected teens to have come out of the eighties. So specific to time, place, and subculture--"Less than Zero" presented a mind numbing odyssey through the soulless wasteland of LA's over-privileged youth populated by indifference, unrepentant drug use, and meaningless sexual encounters. Capturing the ennui of kids with too much money and too much freedom, "Zero" was more of an experience than anything else, and I think it's fair to say that it polarized its audience with Ellis's stark depiction of moral bankruptcy.

So, to say the least, I was intrigued to see where Ellis might pick up his narrative in "Imperial Bedrooms." The introduction is an absolute delight--a playful riff on the prior novel, its true author, and the movie made from the account. It's a wicked send-up blurring the line between fact and fiction for those who read the initial novel and saw the subsequent, and much maligned, film version. But after the zippy intro, there is a shift in tone more in keeping with expectations. We're reintroduced to the principles of "Less Than Zero" led by Clay (now a successful film writer) returning to his Hollywood home. And while I didn't expect the characters to be unrecognizable, it would have been nice to see some sign of humanity in anyone two decades later. If anything, their indifference has turned to cruelty.

"Imperial Bedrooms" does a nice job of recapturing some of the flavor of "Zero"--however, its sense of story is a lot stronger. This might be welcome to some readers put off by "Zero's" meanderings or loathed by others for its far-fetched contrivance. Much more plot-driven, "Bedrooms" is "Zero" refashioned into a neo-noir piece--replete with mystery, murder, blackmail, and manipulation. My problem with "Imperial Bedrooms" is its complete lack of anyone to root for. While "Less Than Zero" was content to set a mood, "Imperial Bedrooms" story elements beg for a protagonist with at least a few redeeming features. Ultimately, it seems like unpleasantness for the sake of unpleasantness. The kids you may remember are certainly older, but absolutely no wiser. Not a one. And it's a disappointment. A small amount of redemption, or hope even, might have balanced the unsavory aspects of "Imperial Bedrooms." The lack of any depth or character development makes me wonder what the point of Ellis's new enterprise is. KGHarris, 5/10.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Sam Spade and the Self-Indulgent Sequel April 4, 2011

By Vivien Weimar

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Brat pack `80s literary bad boy, Bret Easton Ellis is back. Following his familiar characters through the city of angels, Ellis' latest novel, Imperial Bedrooms, is a sequel-of-sorts to Less Than Zero. Set twenty-five years we revisit Clay, Blair and lovable junkie Julian, now in their mid-forties. Adopting L.A.'s narcissistic ennui to hard-boiled detective fiction genre, Ellis' clever choice of modern day Los Angeles turns out to be a perfect setting for a Chandler-esque thriller. Always a master of tight dialogue that both say so much and nothing at all, Ellis' prose lends well to his purpose. However, for all his Marlowe-inspired moves, Imperial Bedrooms falls short of the mark when Ellis' gets too wrapped up in his own fictional tricks. In the end, Ellis' tale of Sam Spade in land of the superficial comes across more self-indulgent than satisfying.

The book begins with two quotes: One from Raymond Chandler as well as a Elvis Costello lyric on the nature of repeating the "old conceits, glib replies and same defeats" in life. Perhaps a prophetic combination of what works (the Chandler aspects) and what doesn't (the repeated self-reference) of this novel as a whole. The latter is an especially telling quote for not only a sequel with little character development in two decades, but also for an extremely ironic, self-referential author. Like Less Than Zero, this new tale is narrated by Clay, who begins by telling the audience about a book that was made about his and his friends' lives that was then made into film. Right from the outset there are two typical Ellis stylistic at work: the continual re-use of his novel's characters as well as his intentional blurring between fact and fiction.

At times, Ellis' own voice bleeds through his narrative, in his (accurate) critique of the movie version of Less Than Zero, as well as the movie's decision to casting Clay as the moral center of the story. It is almost as if Imperial Bedrooms was created just to nullify any truths or re-writes to Ellis' original characters. In fact, Clay's turn from being the seemingly innocent victim of the story to perhaps the most malicious killer of the bunch, feels slightly forced.

While his digs can be distracting, Ellis is at his best when he keeps to the elements of good noir fiction. The protagonist at work in the menacing city streets of Los Angeles; short, staccato-like dialogue; real bar, restaurant and street names; and our hero's exacerbated drinking and sexual exchanges with aspiring actresses. The feeling that Clay is continually being watched and danger lies all around him. No one is really `good' in this world; everyone is on the make. Where `40s noir might have including petty gangsters, Imperial Bedrooms implores a small time escort service that everyone seems to be involved in and the plot is advanced through sexual relations.

Yet for all his exalting characteristics of hard-boiled noir, it is a fine line between homage and satire and toward the end of the novel Ellis tips his hand. When it becomes apparent that Clay may be directly involved in the gruesome murders, the novel starts to unravel. It's when Ellis' characters become more like caricatures of his previous novels that this book ultimately fails. Clays' splatterpunk dream sequence, reminiscent of Ellis' American Psycho, doesn't appear to fit within the plot and the carefully crafted suspense built on unlikable characters is severed. Combined with the unfulfilling ending, this novel leaves the reader feeling slightly conned. Ellis' cocksure Clay comes off too indifferent and self-involved to be a modern day Philip Marlowe. For all its impressive similarities to American hard-boiled fiction, Imperial Bedrooms remains slightly undercooked