Less Than Zero (1985)

Less than Zero is the debut novel of Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1985. It was his first published effort, released when he was a 21-year-old student at Bennington College. The novel was titled after the Elvis Costello song of the same name.

Plot summary

The novel follows the life of Clay, a rich young college student who has returned to his hometown of Los Angeles for winter break circa 1984. Through first-person narration, Clay describes his progressive alienation from the culture around him, loss of faith in his friends, and his meditations on events in his recent past.

After reuniting with his ex-girlfriend, Blair, and friends like Trent, now a successful model, Clay embarks on a series of drug-fueled nights of partying, during which he has one-night stands with both sexes. While partying, he tries to track down his high school best friend, Julian, with whom he has not spoken in months. In between descriptions of his days and nights, Clay recounts a vacation spent with his parents and grandparents, during which he seemed to be the only person concerned that his grandmother was dying of cancer.

Over time, Clay becomes increasingly disillusioned with the party scene as he witnesses his friends' apathy towards each other's suffering and that of those around them. At one party, he watches as the revellers joke and take Polaroids of his friend Muriel while she injects heroin; at another, he and Blair are the only two who exhibit revulsion when Trent shows a snuff film, which sexually excites several partygoers.

Clay ultimately tracks down Julian, who borrows a large sum of money from Clay. At first, Julian says the money is for an abortion, but Clay does not believe him. Later, when Clay asks Julian to pay him back, Julian brings him to meet his abusive pimp, Finn. It is revealed that Julian has become a heroin addict and turned to prostitution in order to pay off a debt to unnamed drug dealers. Believing what he has been told, yet still feeling an empty desire to witness this awful scene for himself, Clay accompanies Julian to a rendezvous in a hotel room with a married closeted businessman from Indiana, where he is compelled by the john to watch the man and Julian have sex for several hours.

After attending a concert with his friends, Clay accompanies them to an alleyway where they stare in fascination at the corpse of a young man, presumably dead by overdose. Afterward, Clay follows the group back to the home of his drug dealer Rip, who wants to show off his latest acquisition: a sex slave whom Rip has been keeping drugged in his bedroom. When Clay tells Rip, "I don't think it's right," Rip says, "What's right?" Clay leaves, but Trent decides to stay to participate.

Now feeling completely isolated and with winter break coming to an end, Clay reflects on the brutal nature of his surroundings as he returns to college in New Hampshire.

Background

Ellis began work on what would become Less than Zero in 1980. He cites his major influences as Joan Didion and noir films set in Los Angeles, but he was also inspired by the moral ambiguity of American Gigolo.

Less than Zero was to become Ellis' first attempt at a proper novel, following much roman à clef juvenilia. Its first draft was incredibly emotional and overwrought, and in the third-person. Ellis's creative writing teacher, novelist Joe McGinniss, advised that he return to the first-person style of roman à clef (which Ellis was hesitant to do) and Ellis stripped it back, from there evoking the minimalist style for which it became famous.

In the former child actor Danny Bonaduce's 2002 autobiography, Random Acts of Badness, Bonaduce notes the striking similarity between the fictional high school in Less than Zero and The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, where Bonaduce, recording artist Michael Jackson, film actor Christian Brando, and other children of wealth and celebrity, including Ellis himself, went to school together. In commenting on the novel, Bonaduce said, "When the book Less Than Zero came out, all my classmates were pissed. Not because it was an exact portrayal of our school – but because we failed to get any royalties."

Characters

Less than Zero has an extensive cast of characters; the ones listed play major roles throughout the novel.

Clay

The 18-year-old protagonist, a student at Camden College in New Hampshire, who comes home to Los Angeles for Christmas and meets his old friends. He revives his old life: parties, concerts, drugs, sex, the city. Clay has brief affairs (a male USC student named Griffin (pp. 35–39), and an unnamed female character (pp. 120–122)), but he goes through periods of apathy and longing for his girlfriend Blair.

Blair

Clay's ex-girlfriend who is studying at USC. Clay is unsure how he feels about her; neither has he been faithful to her. They vacation together and though at first they enjoy the experience, it eventually becomes tedious and ends on a sour note.

Julian Wells

Clay's friend from grade school and high school. Julian is often described as "thin" and many of Clay's friends declare him "completely fucked up". Julian has become a heroin addict and a prostitute.

Trent Burroughs

Another of Clay's friends, a model who attends UCLA. He says things that Clay doesn't understand and Clay gradually becomes disenchanted with him. Trent is shown as increasingly unethical and immoral, raping a drugged twelve-year-old girl in his penultimate scene.

Rip Millar

Clay's dealer. Sporting a fedora and a penthouse on Wilshire Boulevard, Rip is also a DJ, but feels his trust fund "might never run out." At the end of the story, he shows Clay and other young men a 12-year-old girl naked, drugged and tied to his bed to be a sex slave. When a distressed Clay questions Rip as to why he has done this, Rip replies "Why not? What the hell?"

Daniel Carter