Bret Easton Ellis burst onto the literary scene in 1985 with his debut novel, Less Than Zero. Less Than Zero was born smack-dab in the middle of the Reagan 80’s, a time of debauchery and decadence shrouded in a Cold War haze; the dawning of the era where the self-indulgent I would obliterate the once-united We into exile. MTV was in its infancy and Betamax was promising technology.  Clay, Less Than Zero’s protagonist, had a problem merging on freeways, and couldn’t seem to shake the implications of an overbearing billboard in Los Angeles which read, DISAPPEAR HERE.  Clay’s fellow cast of characters: Blair, Julian, Rip, Trent, and others were just as rich, high, and sex-starved as Clay was, and for them, enough was never enough; they saw, they snorted, and they weren’t apologetic for it.  They were the sons and daughters of Hollywood’s movers and shakers, movie producers, real estate agents, and they had the trust funds to prove it.  This group never really had to concern themselves with anything because everything was always given to them.  Less Than Zero was a perfect novel for imperfect times.  They even made a movie based on the book.

Fitting then that twenty-five years later, Imperial Bedroom, Bret Easton Ellis’s sequel to Less Than Zero opens with the line, “They had made a movie about us.”  It’s an intriguing angle to the daunting task of reacquainting an audience after so much time has passed with characters that helped define a generation, all without the author coming off as hedonistic blowhard bent on trying to recapture the past glory of his famed debut.  And for the most part, Imperial Bedrooms and Bret Easton Ellis avoid that pitfall. One of Ellis’s chief strengths has always been his ability to blur the razor-thin line between fantasy and reality to the point where it’s hard to distinguish between the two; Imperial Bedrooms is no exception.  As the book opens Clay has once again just returned to Los Angeles.  Now a successful screenwriter, he’s back in town to help cast the movie adaptation of his novel, “The Listeners” (a wink to the real-life Ellis collection The Informers anyone?).  He’s convinced his condo is haunted by the ghost of the 8-year old boy who lived there prior, he’s being tailed by a blue Jeep, and he’s getting mysterious text messages saying, amongst other things, “I’m watching you.”  He’s running into the Botoxed ghosts of his past at industry parties around town and they haven’t much changed since the mid-80’s.  Blair is married to Trent, but had an affair with Julian, and Rip is still living off his trust fund.  At one of the parties Clay meets a girl named Rain Turner, “The look is blond and wholesome, mid-western, distinctly American, not what I’m usually into. She’s obviously an actress because girls who look like this aren’t out here for any other reason…” and he’s instantly stricken.  “Do you want to be in a movie?” he asks her, and she responds, “Why? Do you have a movie you want to put me in?”  The seemingly simple encounter starts a chain reaction of events which become the crux of Imperial Bedrooms.  Along the way there is kinky sex, bloated corpses, salacious videos, and coke-induced nosebleeds; this is Hollywood after all.  There’s a bit of the despicable, and just when you think Ellis has reached as far as he can go, he goes farther.  If you’re looking for decency, a sense of morality, and overall likable characters, you’re in the wrong place.  In this world everyone is a narcissistic.  As the last line of the book reads, “I never liked anyone and I’m afraid of people.”  Sound familiar?

Less Than Zero shocked people when it was published; the book helped show Conservative America what was really going on behind closed doors, whether they liked it or not.  Twenty-five years later, we’re not so easily shocked; everyone has the internet, everyone goes to psychiatrists, and everyone has access to the best prescription meds.  The class system no longer dictates who gets to be a f*!k up; it’s not a rich person’s privilege anymore.  One of the more infamous scenes in Less Than Zero involved the snuff film Clay’s friend paid $15,000 for. Back then a snuff film was a novelty, something you had to happen across or know the “right” person to see.  Not anymore; Hollywood is up to Saw 115 by now and with the film’s producers still rolling in the cash there’s no end in sight. Fiction is no longer scarier than reality.  The characters of Less Than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms might be rich, the exterior of their lives might look more like an unscripted version of The Hills than a tale of middle-America.  But is that really the case? Their desires–sex, money, power–and their insecurities are the same as anyone else. Is the social-economic gap, the difference between driving a BMW or a beaten-up Buick, or sleeping with the hot girl or just wishing that you could be sleeping with the hot girl really that big of a canyon? Keep an eye on the Facebook status updates from your friends and ask yourself that question again.

In the end Imperial Bedrooms is a tale of morality, and how one’s definition of what morality means can shape the world around them, as only Bret Easton Ellis can tell it.  Naysayers might ask if Imperial Bedrooms really adds anything new to the story of the characters of Less Than Zero twenty-five years later, and the truth is no, it probably doesn’t.  But how many high school reunions, how many mirrors tell the same picture day after day? That old cliche, “The more things change the more they stay the same,” that’s so true. And perhaps that’s the scary part.  But even so Imperial Bedrooms is one helluva read.