My Amazon Reviews: Brett Easton Ellis "Imperial Bedrooms"

Zombies in the trees outside the condos

3 Out Of 5 Stars

30 years after Clay, Blair and Julian exposed themselves to be shallow, drug addled and self absorbed Hollywood brats, they have grown up to become shallow, self absorbed Hollywood adults. They still meander thought their lives in overtly confusing jumbles of run-on sentences trying to connect with their vapid lives that seem to matter ony to themselves or at least to whenever Clay can figure where his next connection will take place. As he would have it in his life anyways, Clay is the central figure in "Imperial Bedrooms," now a middling success as a producer and screenwriter of pictures that churn out of Hollywood with little purpose other than to see how many times the name Clay will appear on IMDb with a minor side of actresses and actors to have sex with and or make him feel like he's still a teenager.

But this time, there's dead bodies hanging around. Clay strings along an actress named Rain, who soon is revealed to have threads to all of Clay's past "Less Than Zero" associates and maybe a murderous cult that has the potential to be stalking them. Clay has to unravel the tangled Noirish foggy entrails while he hits the finest hot-spots and debates what Prada suit he would look best in or if he could find a way to track down what parties he should use to promote his screenplay for "The Listeners" which he has been stringing rain along by implying there would be a part for her even though he knows there won't be.

And yes, Ellis still writes that way. There's a sly sense of humor underneath it all, even though the book is dry as a bone. in fact, the opening chapter is Clay complaining about how badly the movie of "Less Than Zero" was and how Julian irritated that they killed him off onscreen. It isn't as good as "Less Than Zero" or has confrontational/controversial as "American Psycho," but it is still Ellis writing in the form that he pioneered...and does better than any of his many copycats.