Ellis, Bret Easton - Neal Karlen (review date 21 August 1994)
Neal Karlen (review date 21 August 1994)
SOURCE: "Attack of the Anti-Heroes," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 8, 1994, pp. 3, 8.
[In the following review of The Informers, Karlen critiques the development of Ellis's work.]
Joe McGinniss' gravest crime against literature was not The Last Brother, the author's recent and ridiculous faux-biography of Ted Kennedy. Rather, McGinniss' worst felony was rushing Bret Easton Ellis, his fiction-writing student at Bennington College, to publish Less Than Zero at age 21.
Ironically, the 1985 first novel was an excellent beginning for an obviously talented writer; Less Than Zero provided a provocative snapshot of a time when the anomic ditherings of idle, rich, drug-addled, white-bread Los Angeles young adults was considered fresh material. Bearing a canny journalist's eye for detail and dialogue, Ellis' storytelling already carried the complete lack of...
[The entire page is 1330 words long]
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