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Less Than Zero | Introduction

In 1985 Less Than Zero burst onto the literary scene. The book was a commercial success, and garnered much critical attention. As a result, its author, Bret Easton Ellis, was catapulted into the public eye. The story touches on themes of alienation, moral detachment, death, and nihilism in its portrayal of overprivileged youth in contemporary Los Angeles. Critics hailed it as the "voice of a new generation" and the "first MTV novel." The novel is narrated by Clay, a college student home on vacation, as he observes his friend slip deeper into drugs and prostitution. His detached and dispassionate view of the dissipation and corruption around him is often interpreted as a comment on modern-day society.

Less Than Zero Summary

Freeways and Billboards
A student at an East Coast college, Clay is a young man on Christmas break, spending his time off in his hometown of Los Angeles. His girlfriend, Blair, picks him up from the airport. One of her comments strikes Clay, and is worked into the rest of the novel at various key moments: "People are afraid to merge onto the freeway in Los Angeles." Clay's repetition of "people are afraid to merge" is an echo of E. M. Forster's phrase "only Connect"— the words that preface A Passage to India—and Ellis's phrase encapsulates the disconnected and empty life he finds back in California.

In the first section of the book Clay describes a series of parties and family meetings leading up to Christmas. He spends time with his friends Daniel, Trent, Julian and Blair; he easily falls back into the promiscuity, parties, and drugs. Clay has one-night stands with men and women, and uses cocaine frequently. Clay's relationships with his family and Blair grow more strained, and he begins repeating the key set of phrases more and more often.

Parties and Cocaine
The narrative shifts through more scenes of parties, nightclubs, and diners. In a thematically significant image, an old lady collapses from the heat at La Scala. The crowd looks on, bored. As the vignettes become more brutal and detached, Clay's... » Complete Less Than Zero Summary

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1. Less Than Zero: Introduction
2. Less Than Zero: Summary
3. Less Than Zero: Bret Easton Ellis Biography
4. Less Than Zero: Characters
5. Less Than Zero: Themes
6. Less Than Zero: Style
7. Less Than Zero: Historical Context
8. Less Than Zero: Critical Overview
9. Less Than Zero: Essays and Criticism
   1. The Commodification of Images and Desire in Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero
   2. Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero: Entropy in the MTV Novel
   3. Wishing for More
10. Less Than Zero: Topics for Further Study
11. Less Than Zero: Media Adaptations
12. Less Than Zero: What Do I Read Next?
13. Less Than Zero: Bibliography and Further Reading
14. Less Than Zero: Pictures
15. Copyright

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