5. Imperial Bedrooms (2010)
Follow up book to Less Than Zero - Imperial Bedrooms returns to the themes of sexual over indulgence, ultra violence and hedonism. It is also more of a character study of Clay (the chief protagonist in Less Than Zero) exposing flaws in his psyche like sadism and narcissism. Grown up Clay is a screen writer. He explains that someone he knew wrote a book about a particularly decadent Christmas he experienced in the 1980s. This book later became a film. The author was in love with Clay's girlfriend Blair and portrayed Clay very differently to who he actually is. Clay has been in New York for a number of years and he decides to go back to California and meet up with the old crew. Womaniser Trent has married Blair and he works as a manager. Julian is now a high class pimp for young men, and Rip - his former drug dealer - runs a cartel. Clay tries to romance a beautiful actress called Rain Turner - promising her a role in his film (even though she is too old for the part). Clay frequently gets into relationships with actors and actresses like this and usually gets his fingers burnt. He is stalked by persons unknown in a jeep and watches a snuff movie online in a disinterested fashion. Word gets out that Rip had a fling with Rain and wants her to be his girlfriend. He will kill anyone standing in his way. Clay decides to throw his lot in with Rip. Julian is currently dating Rain so Clay and Rip kill him. Rain confronts Clay about his role in the murder of Julian and Clay rapes her in response. Rip delivers a video of the murder to Clay, with an angry voicemail Clay left dubbed over it - this would be very incriminating evidence against Clay should it fall into the wrong hands. Rip also sends Clay a video of extremely disturbing footage of Clay abusing young girls and boys. This could be real or fake - the novel doesn't indicate. Clay has no remorse over killing Julian or raping Rain. He lands on his feet at the end of the novel when Blair offers to provide him with an alibi for Julian's murder. A lot of criticism of the book was levelled at the lack of character development in the main characters from Less Than Zero to the current novel. They just remain as depraved and unlikeable as they were in the first book - no one sees the light or sees a shrink - therefore, how can we care for such stunted characters and what happens to them? Clay, whom at the end of Less Than Zero appeared to have a measure of disgust for all of the hedonistic shenanigans in that book, just turns out to be as bad, if not worse, than the other characters in the scope of his heinousness. It is a deeply pessimistic view of humanity. Clay can also be likened to Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, Clay is a psychopath who feels no remorse. I think that there is more contrition for Bateman's sins in American Psycho than Ellis injects into Imperial Bedrooms for Clay's character. Such monstrousness of character makes for a compelling read - just to see what outrage Clay will get up to next. But the lack of likeable characters - basically everyone in Imperial Bedrooms is a s**thead - makes for an extremely emotionally detached read - there is no one to like. As disturbing as American Psycho in its own way.