Valet Reader

Admittedly, it has been sometime since I’ve seen Marek Kanievska’s 1987 film adaptation of Ellis’ prequel to this book Less Than Zero. I have however recently read Less Than Zero. Oddly enough, I was unaware at the time that Imperial Bedrooms, the follow-up Ellis’ first work was going to be released.

With that said, I now must tell you that I was incredibly surprised by Imperial Bedrooms. While the writing and much of the imagery of Less Than Zero remains intact in this book, the overall story is so far different, in my eyes, that it came as a bit of a shock to me. That and it almost felt as though there were some scenes added in there just for pure shock value.

The book beings with Clay, the narrator from Less Than Zero returning to Los Angeles in the modern day after being in New York intermittently. He is now a screenwriter who has returned to LA to help cast his latest film adaptation. Clay’s first course of action is to explain to the reader that there has been a movie, Less Than Zero made about he and his friends and goes on in a diatribe to discredit the film as being a false representation. If my memory serves me right, he’s not lying. For instance, Julian, is in fact, not dead.

From there the story quickly changes tact and begins to investigate Clay, Julian, Blair, Rip and several other characters from Less Than Zero‘s current states. I won’t go into details here on what it is they are up to, but, I will say that some things never change. This book is, in essence, a love story. A demented, disgusting and disturbing one, but a love story nonetheless. Quick rundown: Clay seduces woman with lies, woman is actually dating/ in love with someone else, a third man is also in love with this woman, only one can have her.

Without doubt, what surprised me the most about this novel was the story itself. It involves love triangles, espionage, violence, sex and torture. All things that one would actually expect to find in this book. But, it was the in which it was done that shocked me the most. I think one of the things that drew me into Less Than Zero was that it was a telling story of how three friends, over the course of a Summer, changed and drifted apart. In other words, a vingette of life for the wealthy youth of Los Angeles in the 80′s. Obviously Imperial Bedrooms draws these three characters back together but rather than continue in the same vain as Zero Ellis takes a more linear, in my mind, course to his story.

In terms of the writing, it was what was to be expected. The flat and morose depictions remain intact and with minimal effort Ellis is able to convey each characters emotions, especially those of Clay. Just as when I shirked away from the pages in Zero when Julian performed some dastardly deeds to pay off his debts, I shirked away again when reading about Clay and his crude activities with two teenagers. The similarity in writing style between the two books doesn’t end there of course. Where landlines and the Go-Go’s ruled the pages of Zero, the iPhone, e-mail, Bats for Lashes and The National take over the pop references for the current day.

Having read and seen Less Than Zero it was a no-brainer that I was bound to read this book at some point. The fact that it coincidentally happened right after reading Ellis’ 80′s diatribe or masterpiece, depending on how you look at it, was pretty convenient. But I’ll say this, if you aren’t already familiar with these characters, either from the movie or the book (although I highly recommend reading the book first if you haven’t) I don’t know how much you’ll enjoy Imperial Bedrooms. Much of the context and development from the first book would be lost upon you and the relationships between the characters would have nearly no meaning. That said, despite feeling a little disappointed in this novel, it would be hard not to recommend it to those of you already familiar with Clay, Blair, Julian and Rip.