Less Than Zero (Paperback)

by Bret Easton Ellis (Author) "People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles..." (more)
Key Phrases: Palm Springs, New Hampshire, Beverly Hills (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Written when the author was 20, this first novel tells the story of Clay, a New Hampshire college student who returns home to Los Angeles for Christmas vacation. Vignettes show Clay and his friends aimlessly traveling from party to party, doing drugs, having sex with one another. PW noted that Ellis "brilliantly conveys this crowd's delirium as well as the lack of fulfillment they cannot remedy."
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product 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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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (June 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679781498
• ISBN-13: 978-0679781493
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (231 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,289 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "The Catcher in the Rye" on crack. literally., July 6, 2002

By	erica "ejs192" (Amherst, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This novel - written and set in Los Angeles in the 1980's, so be prepared not to understand many of the pop-culture references if you're much younger than 30 - details four weeks in the life of eighteen-year-old Clay, who returns home from college halfway through freshman year for a month-long Christmas vacation. He spends most of his time hanging out with his friends from high school, going to bars and nightclubs, having sex, and doing drugs.

So what's the big deal? Booze, sex, and drugs might be fun to *do* for four weeks, but reading about them for 200 pages sounds like it might get old. And it does. You begin to lose track of the characters, because there are so many of them. You begin to forget where Clay was this morning, where he was last night, what day and what time it is right now. You begin to stop caring how much crack he smokes or how many other drugs he mixes it with, whether his sex partners are male or female. You stop worrying that his parents might catch him, that he'll have a bad trip, that - even in 1985 - he'll get HIV.

And that's the point. The book is less a narrative than an experience. The manic highs and desperate lows of Clay's existence will blur together and you'll grow confused about the purpose of your own life. The 200 pages of this book - with large print, and broken up into easy-to-handle page-long vignettes - will become 200 minutes of ebb and flow, the swell of a wave under which you, because you aren't the one doing all those drugs, will never become trapped.

Be aware that this book can be frustrating. The central conflict is an internal one, and only vaguely delineated, and never really resolved. The book seems to end not because it is finished with the story it tells but because it has reached the end of its allotted span.

Do not read this book if you are looking for something pleasant, or something gripping, or something sweet. Do not read it for humor or suspense or an interesting plot. Read it if you read "The Catcher in the Rye" in junior high and didn't quite understand. Read it if you're nostalgic for futility. Read it on a train or a bus or in an airport, to contribute to the timeless, anchorless feel of the book. Read it quickly, in as few sittings as possible, and then leave it somewhere - in the pouch where they keep the barf bag, on the end seat of one of those long, featureless rows, on the counter in a public restroom - to keep company with somebody else, on some other journey.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Drains you dry, April 18, 2002

By	Kirsten Chance (VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Probably my fav book by Ellis seeing as I felt so utterly empty inside after finishing it. These characters Blair, Julian and friends have got to be the most shallow and unfeeling people I've ever read. Sure, Bateman in "A. Psycho" was materialistic but he was insane unlike these kids who're supposedly NORMAL teenagers!! If this is what the rich life in L.A. is all about than I'll be certain to never visit. But I am so sick of hearing people say this was a boring story and don't feel sorry for these kids just because they're spoiled and rich! Can we honestly say we wouldn't be as empty if we lived the way they did with only cocaine and meaningless sex to entertain us? Ellis is brilliant in depicting the lives of materialistic, spoiled brats having to live without love and emotional security. If you're looking for a novel to leave you feeling hollow and disturbed emotionally, I highly reccommend this. It gives the word 'dreary' a whole new meaning.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As Good Now as When I First Read It, August 9, 2001

By	"muppetcow" (Omaha, NE United States) - See all my reviews

I first bought this book at a used bookstore when I was in 8th grade and it completely changed my life. Up until then, I'd been reading the standard young-adult fare required for school and this was my first foray into anything slightly unusual.

At first glance, Less Than Zero seems to be more of a travelogue on Los Angeles for the rich and fabulous during the 80's. There is almost no plot to speak of, and the characters exist in an seemingly emotionless vacuum of privilege, drugs, and casual sex. Everyone is more concerned with clothes, cars, and being tan than anything else, and the flippant, 1st-person, present-tense style backs up this assumption. However, a deeper reading proves there's much more lurking below the surface.

This is a very well-constructed novel, sparse and economical in the use of words. It is a deceptively easy read, yet immensely satisfying. I have read this book at least a dozen times since I first purchased it, and now own my 6th copy--I keep loaning it to people who refuse to give it back! This is, in my opinion, by far Bret Easton Ellis' finest work.