Reviews have started coming in for Bret Easton Ellis’s Imperial Bedrooms, a follow-up to Less Than Zero.
At the Guardian Alison Kelly was in awe of the book’s violent spectacle, seeing it as “almost defiantly appalling and sickening, but it is also brilliantly written and coolly self-aware.” But ultimately she came away unsure of Ellis’s aim. “Ellis has always (enjoying the paradox) styled himself a moralist, so is he trying to teach us something? Possibly.”
Over at the sister publication, the Observer Mark Lawson enjoyed the book’s references to its predecessor. “Easton Ellis’s literary face-lift to his youthful first appearance has been conducted more subtly, retaining what was initially attractive with a few tight injections of modernity.”
Over at the New York Times there was less division between their critics. Janet Maslin dissed it as “a work of limited imagination that all too deftly simulates the effects of having no imagination at all.” While in the paper’s ‘Sunday Book Review’ Erica Wagner sniffed that the book’s attempts to shock dated it “We, the modern audience for novels like this, have gotten over being shocked.”
Bookings for Bret Easton Ellis’s Melbourne appearance go on sale 16th July.