Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis delivers a riveting, tour-de-force sequel to Less Than Zero, one of the most singular novels of the last thirty years. Returning to Los Angeles from New York, Clay, now a successful screenwriter, is casting his new movie. Soon he is running with his old circle of friends through L.A.’s seedy side. His ex-girlfriend, Blair, is married to Trent, a bisexual philanderer and influential manager. Then there's Julian, a recovering addict, and Rip, a former dealer. Then when Clay meets a gorgeous young actress who will stop at nothing to be in his movie, his own dark past begins to shine through, and he has no choice but to dive into the recesses of his character and come to terms with his proclivity for betrayal.

Imperial Bedrooms

hessensitive

"Well, I knew Blair had loaned him a lot of money- well, seventy grand, but for him that's a lot of money."

There's nothing to do but wait for the party and since I have nowhere else to go I stick around Culver City, skipping the afternoon auditions, the fear returning as I walk to a liquor store to buy aspirin, the alcoholic dreaminess of everything, the ghosts swarming everywhere whispering 'You need to be careful who you let into your life,' and I'm pacing the courtyard while I return a couple of calls- leaving messages for the agent, the manager, the movie about the monkeys, Dr. Woolf- and smoking cigarettes by the swimming pool and watching the decorating crew string up lights along the length of a curving beige wall that borders one end of the pool and then I'm introduced to the actor who got the main role of Grant, Kevin Spacey's son, in The Listeners and the boy is unusually handsome even with the beard he has because of the pirate movie he's shooting and screens have been set up and headshots of various young actors are flashing on them and then from somewhere complaints are made and the screens are repositioned and I meet another girl who won another modelling competition and the afternoon becomes grayer, the sky shrouded with clouds, and someone asks me, "What's the matter, dude?"

The orange face contemplates something and as it leans into me it says, "You're so much further out there than I thought, dude."

I started with champagne tonight so the lucidity hasn't worn off and the dead zone isn't bleeding forward yet and I'm in someone's Aston Martin and he's bragging about a whore he keeps in his Abbot Kinney condo just east of the Venice canals and another one in a suite at the Huntley. I murmur the hotel's ad line ("Sea and be seen").

I'm unsure if this story really needed to be told? It felt a little bare. The nihilistic, detached & languid vibe made sense in Less Than Zero, but it all felt a little hollow in this book. 

Louis Norton

Doesn’t get much darker than this, but earns its awfulness completely. As with Less Than Zero, a sort of existential grief looms, but this follow up is propulsive, sleek, taut - word for word his most technically accomplished book I reckon.

Not the best but not the worst. Liked hearing from my buddy Clay again.

_linia_

Galaxia

while the plot of this novel is much more linear, i somehow found Imperial Bedrooms less interesting than its predecessor. the plot winds around itself, backtracking constantly and feeding the reader tidbits and details that are perhaps deceptively didactic. of course, Ellis still impresses with his visceral, gory observations of LA told through the sickeningly nonchalant lens of Clay and there were definitely a few beautifully jarring lines, but i still found the story a bit difficult to follow and overly transparent. but maybe that’s the point?

Nicholas Barnard

Virgil Nilson

Houssine Benboubker

Clay is a successful screenwriter, middle-aged and disaffected; he's in LA to cast his new movie. However, this trip is anything other than professional, and he's soon drifting through a louche and long-familiar circle - a world largely populated by the band of infamous teenagers first introduced in Less Than Zero. But his debauched reverie is about to be interrupted by a violent plot for revenge and Clay's seemingly endless proclivity for betrayal and exploitation looks set to land him somewhere darker and more ominous than ever before. 'A murder mystery - a woozy, paranoid, hallucinatory version of LA noir' Sunday Times 'Brilliantly written and coolly self-aware . . . Here, as in Less Than Zero, Ellis is plumbing the depths of human nature, exposing it at its worst.' Observer 'The novel is a kind of modern noir and, as in Chandler, the form's accepted master, atmosphere is king. Paranoia prevails' Independent on Sunday

Charlotte Dann

Gabriela Magana

Sandi McGrogan

Noha Abdelaziz

Manuel Tiago Pereira

Ture Strange Nilsson

Alexander Lobov

Savanna Carroll

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 that will leave him no choice but to plumb the darkest recesses of his character and come to terms with his proclivity for betrayal.

Imperial bedrooms

Jacob Munk-Stander

Luke Pearce

Samantha Alukas 

Clay is a successful screenwriter, middle-aged and disaffected; he’s in LA to cast his new movie. However, this trip is anything other than professional, and he’s soon drifting through a louche and long-familiar circle – a world largely populated by the band of infamous teenagers first introduced in Bret Easton Ellis's first novel Less Than Zero. After a meeting with a gorgeous but talentless actress determined to win a role in his movie, Clay finds himself connected with Kelly Montrose, a producer whose gruesomely violent death is suddenly very much the talk of the town. Imperial Bedrooms follows Clay as his debauched reverie is interrupted by a violent plot for revenge and his seemingly endless proclivity for betrayal and exploitation looks set to land him somewhere darker and more ominous than ever before.

Imperial Bedrooms

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