Staff Pick
A captivating ride through the darker side of being young and rich in LA in the '80s. Take a couple of days and immerse yourself in this evocative and frightening portrait of a subculture. Recommended By Nicholas Y., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"A killer sexy, sassy, and sad... It's a teenage slice-of-death novel, no holds barred." Village Voice
Review
"One of the most disturbing novels I've read in a long time. It possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Review
"Catcher in the Rye for the MTV generation." USA Today
Review
"Never has Hollywood's version of success looked so frightening in a piece of contemporary literature." Newsday
Review
"Bret Easton Ellis
is an extremely traditional and very serious American novelist. He is the model of filial piety, counting among his parents Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, and Joan Didion." Carolyn See, Washington Post
Review
"Startling and hypnotic... a haunting, evocative portrait of a kind of L.A. life almost too turbulent to believe." Interview
Review
"Filled with languid comic terror, Less than Zero is a startling debut for Bret Ellis, a no wave West Coast La Dolce Vita." Richard Price
Synopsis
Set in L.A. in the early 1980s, this bestselling and coolly mesmerizing novel established its young author as the E Scott Fitzgerald for a generation so irretrievably lost that its motto might be "Disappear here."
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.
Synopsis
Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, Less than Zero has become a timeless classic. 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. They live in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money in 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.
Synopsis
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The timeless classic from the acclaimed author of American Psycho about the lost generation of 1980s Los Angeles who experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age. - The basis for the cult-classic film Possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality. --The New York Times They live in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money in a place devoid of feeling or hope. When Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college, he re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porsches, 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.
Look for Bret Easton Ellis's new novel, The Shards, coming in January.