What was the deal with… Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis?

Out of the three most famous authors in the literary Brat Pack of the 1980s, Less Than Zero author Bret Easton Ellis seemed to me to be the strongest writer. He didn’t use an obvious gimmick like Tama Janowicz (starting off a book with a paragraph about dicks) or Jay McIerney (writing in the 2nd person present tense). He also focused on youthful Los Angelos debauchery instead of youthful New York debauchery.

I was a college student when Less Than Zero came out, and I had no interest in reading it because I was already a college student and wasn’t interested in the literary debauchery of other college students, especially students from elite colleges. I went to a state school and for the most part had to pay my way. I didn’t want to read about privileged students.

Now that I’m in my 50s, I’m really not interested in college debauchery, unless it’s funny.

Anyway, at the time, I wondered how young authors like those in the Literary Brat Pack managed to get published. Who in the literary world would have wanted to read their novels?

Ellis had an advantage over other writers my age because his writing instructor was famous writer Joe McGinnis who probably helped Ellis get a book deal. My writing instructor in college was a guy who once brought in a somewhat known literary author of the 1980s to speak, but I don’t think the author really knew my writing instructor.

Don’t get me wrong. If Joe McGinnis had been my writing instructor, I still never would have gotten a book deal, so I’m not complaining; I’m just pointing it out.

In this early scene from Less Than Zero, the narrator Clay has returned to Los Angelos on Christmas break from his first semester in college and is going to a high school friend’s Christmas party:

*****

There are two Christmas trees, one in the living room and one in the den and both have twinkling dark-red lights coloring them. There are people at the party from high school, most of whom I haven’t seen since graduation and they all stand next to the two huge trees. Trent, a male model I know, is there.

“Hey, Clay,” Trent says, a red-and-green-plaid scarf wrapped around his neck.

“Trent,” I say.

“How are you, babes?”

“Great. Trent, this is Daniel. Daniel, this is Trent.”

Trent offers his hand and Daniel smiles and adjusts his sunglasses and lightly shakes it.

“Hey, Daniel,” Trent says. “Where do you go to school?”

“With Clay,” Daniel says. “Where do you go?”

“UCLA or as the Orientals call it, UCRA.” Trent imitates an old Japanese man, eyes slit, front teeth stuck out in parody, and then laughs drunkenly.

“I go to the University of Spoiled Children,” Blair says, still grinning, running her fingers through her long blond hair.

“Where?” asks Daniel.

“USC,” she says.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “That’s right.”

Blair and Trent laugh and she grabs his arm to balance herself for a moment. “Or Jew SC,” she says, almost gasping.

“Or Jew CLA,” Trent says, still laughing.

*****

From the parts I’ve read, I don’t see anything special about Less Than Zero.

I think it’s interesting that out of all the characters, only the narrator doesn’t participate in the bigoted comments. Maybe Clay is a decent guy. Maybe the narrator needs to be portrayed as sympathetic to the reader before engaging later in the debauchery that’s sure to take place. Maybe the author was afraid to let Clay participate in the conversation because he didn’t want readers thinking the author himself was the narrator and a bigot. What a wuss!

As a side note, I don’t know what they were teaching in elite writing classes back in the 1980s, but I noticed three missing commas and at least one misplaced modifier in that excerpt. I would point them out, but then I might be accused of being a Grammar Nazi. I don’t think literary authors from elite universities like being corrected by unpublished bloggers from state schools.

*****

But enough about me! What do you think? Was there anything special about Less Than Zero that made it worthy of literary attention?