3. Less Than Zero (1985)
Clay is a college student who comes home for the Christmas holidays to sunny California. He meets up with his friend Trent - who is now a successful model - and he goes a bit wild picking up men and women for one night stands and drugging himself stupid. He is trying to track down his ex-girlfriend Blair and former best friend Julian. Clay gradually gets bored of the party scene which is superficial and lacks any shred of tenderness. A group of people take polaroid shots of his friend Muriel shooting up heroin. At another party, a snuff movie is played and this excites everyone but Clay and Blair, whom he has found at this stage. Exiting the party life, Clay finds Julian who is now a smack addict and dealer. He has also turned to prostitution to support his habit. Clay can't wrap his head around this and accompanies Julian to meet a john with whom Julian has sex for several hours. Clay goes to a concert and afterwards he finds a decaying junkie corpse in an alleyway. Nobody has cared enough to report his death. Clay finally decides enough is enough when he goes to drug dealer - Rip's house - and discovers he has a 12 year old sex slave girl whom he is inviting everyone to abuse. Sick to the gills of all the depravity he has witnessed, Clay goes back east to college. Less Than Zero is a remarkable achievement when you consider that Bret Easton Ellis was a 21 year old college student when it was published. It is not a perfect book, but it is remarkably self assured. The book is a shocking read, a portrait of 1980s hedonism among people who have too much money and absolutely zero heart. In fact as the title suggests, they have less than zero heart, humanity, decency and soul. Clay remarks at one point: "It is less painful if I don't care". He is lucky to have somewhere to escape to and he is fortunate to avoid becoming mired in all of the depravity around him. Ellis portrays the ugly underbelly of being rich and bored. It is not his best book but it is way better than the film that was based on it, and a heck of a lot more unsavoury too.