Less than zero

208 pages

English language

Published July 10, 1998 by Vintage Comtemporaries.

ISBN:
978-0-679-78149-3
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OCLC Number:
948653579

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(40 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.

31 editions

Disappear Here.

I read Less Than Zero after reading American Psycho about a year ago. This is an incredibly powerful book with solid motifs and themes - it almost feels like a prototype of Ellis's future work. Clay's lifestyle, as described, is completely alien to me, personally. Still, Ellis is so effective at conveying the emptiness and the disconnect at the core of these youths' psyche that I cannot help but feel for them despite their overwhelming privilege. The plot isn't exactly linear, but Ellis manages to gets his point across nonetheless. Overall, Less Than Zero is an impressive endeavour for such a young author that I greatly enjoyed reading.

Review of 'Less Than Zero (Picador Books)' on 'Goodreads'

This I reread, after being swept by The Shards. It’s been a ling time.

What I remembered and experienced again: the desolation of the insanely rich narcist brats. The substance abuse. The emptiness, the pervasive, stiffling sense of boredom of those free to pursuit anything, no limits. Also: the glimpse of humanity.

I did not recall the viscersl cruelty that much. Even so, the language is mesmerizing, powerful.

This is not a happy book. Many books are not.

Review of 'Less Than Zero' on 'Goodreads'

25 years ago Less Than Zero was published by a 21 year old Bret Easton Ellis with reviews like "Oh, this is just nihilism. These people don't exist! There's nobody that rich and stupid and narcissistic!" (The New Yorker, June 1985). Reading it now, we all probably know self-destructive people like these. Less than Zero has developed a cult following and feels like you are reading a diary of a lost and unsure rich 18 year-old who come back to the destructive neighbourhood of his past. Though out the book you are unsure if Clay will even grow or learn from all this and it almost feels like he doesn’t.

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Subjects

  • Young men -- Fiction.
  • Drug addiction -- Fiction.
  • Friendship -- Fiction.
  • Generation X -- Fiction.
  • Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Fiction.

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