Twenty-five years on from "Less Than Zero", we pick up again with "Clay". In 1985, Bret Easton Ellis shocked, stunned and disturbed with "Less Than Zero", his 'extraordinarily accomplished first novel' ("New Yorker"), successfully chronicling the frightening consequences of unmitigated hedonism within the ranks of the ethically bereft youth of 80s Los Angeles. Now, twenty-five years later, Ellis returns to those same characters: to Clay and the band of infamous teenagers whose lives weave sporadically through his. But now, some years on, they face an even greater period of disaffection: their own middle age. Clay seems to have moved on - he's become a successful screenwriter - but when he returns from New York to Los Angeles, to help cast his new movie, he's soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is now married to Trent, and their Beverly Hills parties attract excessive levels of fame and fortune, though for all that Trent is a powerful manager, his baser instincts remain: he's still a bisexual philanderer. Then there's Clay's childhood friend, Julian - who's now a recovering addict - and their old dealer, Rip - face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than he was in his notorious past. Clay, too, struggles with his own demons after a meeting with a gorgeous actress determined to win a role in his movie. And with his life careening out of control, he's forced to come to terms with the deepest recesses of his character - and with his seemingly endless proclivity for betrayal. Review "Taut and ultimately terrifying....In six novels, the author has emerged as one of the most gifted and serious novelists working in America today." --Hari Kunzru, "Financial Times" "Brutally conceived, and effectively done....There is no doubt that Ellis retains the ability to startle and disquiet." --Stephen Abell, "The Times Literary Supplement" "Ellis remains a bold ignorer of literary boundaries. "Imperial Bedrooms" is but another unexpected swerve in a wonderfully weird career." J. Robert Lennon, "London Review of Books" "Enough talk of [Ellis's] literary genius, let's call him what he really is: a terrific horror writer. "Imperial Bedrooms" is an absolute creepfest [and] a festival of panting paranoia." --Thomas Conner, "Chicago Sun-Times" "A profoundly talented--and occasionally even brilliant--writer...Ellis has a fictional territory all his own and, heaven forbid, a mastery there." --Jeff Simon, "Buffalo News" "A page-turning read [with] a sneaky subtlety...Holding a mirror to our desires, Ellis shows us how much scarier what we think we want can be when severed from even the possibility of innocence, [employing] noirish staples to lure his reader along while subtly circling back to the older--and more frightening--theme: the dead soul." --Michael McGregor, "The Oregonian" "This is the most Chandleresque of Bret's books, and the most deeply steeped in L.A. noir...As Dante's hell is circular, so is [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...What stays with [the reader] 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." --Donna Tartt, Amazon.com "A page-turner..."Imperial Bedroom About the Author Bret Easton Ellis is also the author of Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, The Informers, Glamorama, and Lunar Park, and his work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He lives in Los Angeles. http://www.amazon.in/Imperial-Bedro...bps_img_s-3_3947_1756505b&smid=A2OGCK12PW4BK8
