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Less Than Zero

By: Bret Easton Ellis
Narrated by: Christian Rummel
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Publisher's summary

Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money – a place devoid of feeling or hope.

Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porsches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs, and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Bret Easton Ellis' book, you'll also get an exclusive Jim Atlas interview that begins when the audiobook ends.

This production is part of our Audible Modern Vanguard line, a collection of important works from groundbreaking authors.
©1985 Bret Easton Ellis (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
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Editorial reviews

The oft-referenced Los Angeles billboard in Bret Easton Ellis' novel Less Than Zero reads simply: Disappear Here. While that normally evokes a sunny, beach bum getaway in beautiful southern California, it's the disappearance of any moral grounding and individuality that become the true meaning behind the phrase. Clay, a young college student home for winter break in the early 1980s, is our guide to the lifestyles of the rich and truly screwed-up, where everyone wears the best clothes, drives the newest cars, and parties all the time, but has nothing to show for it. Drugs and alcohol flow freely. Conversations mostly revolve around party plans and petty gossip. Teenagers don't know where their jet-setting parents are and don't seem to care about anything or anyone. Clay passively partakes in everything around him; he's barely noticeable as a character despite his status as the narrator. He doesn't judge his friends when they lead him into dangerous lifestyles, but he also doesn't fully join in. Clay rekindles a physical affair with his loving ex-girlfriend Blair but insists they're no longer together, allowing him the freedom to sleep with other girls and boys. He's vaguely aware of the moral unwinding of those closest to him, but is unwilling to stop it and is actually intrigued enough to watch it all happen.

This is a bleak world without a shining beacon of hope. Ellis tips his hand at what he thinks are some of the causes: the superficiality of Hollywood and Los Angeles in general, the massive amounts of wealth afforded to the teens, the lack of any decent parenting, a world where people do what they want simply because they can without any consequence. But you'd be hard pressed to find a critical voice in the tone of the storytelling. This is what separates Less Than Zero from other cautionary coming-of-age tales. Clay witnesses a society facing moral collapse and there are ample descriptions about how the characters are affected. Still, outside of any superficial comments, Clay isn't really critical of this kind of moral decomposition and the author allows the world around Clay to exist without a contradictory note. The restraint Ellis shows in revealing the meanings and themes of the novel are in stark contrast to the Twitter-like detail of Clay's horrifying winter break. The countless (and in some instances shocking) stories of teen life in Los Angeles in the '80s combine to create a general sense of societal decay and a kind of death permeates the environment. You're left wondering whether or not Clay will come back home after he returns to college.

Christian Rummel provides the voices of Clay and a cast of reckless teens and parents, as well as a psychiatrist more interested in himself than his patients. Rummel's Clay is a study of passivity, rarely rising above an impassioned whine in all his interaction with others. Everyone else sounds appropriately numb and detached. The teens are drugged up spoiled brats, bravely voiced as such with no pause for how obnoxious they may sound (but then again, that's the point). Rummel easily conveys the impatient cluelessness of valley girls and the cocky, surfer-like aloofness of the lost boys. For the majority of the book, the narration occurs at a disconnected, cool pace. But late in the novel, as Clay accompanies his best friend Julian to a hotel room to partake in desperate act of male prostitution for drug money, Rummel's performance takes on a slightly anxious, panicked tone. The change in pacing here and in a few other important scenes highlights Clay's motivations and is key to understanding the meaning of the novel. In this way and more, Rummel serves Ellis' delicate vision with expert skill. —Josh Ravitz

Critic reviews

" Catcher in the Rye for the MTV generation." ( USA Today)
"A killer - sexy, sassy, and sad.... It's a teenage slice-of-death novel, no holds barred." ( Village Voice)
"One of the most disturbing novels I've read in a long time. It possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality." ( The New York Times)

What listeners say about Less Than Zero

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Makes you feel Hopeless

I think this book is really well written - every "negative" about the book seems to be intentional as if that's the point. None of the characters are particularly unique or memorable, but that's kind of the point. Not much action happens, but that's kind of the point. Some of the things that DO happen are shocking and disturbing, but that's kind of the point.

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    4 out of 5 stars

Not my kind of book, but admirable craftsmanship nonetheless

It’s hard to listen to a book when you can’t really care much about most of the characters, even the narrator. It’s a book with no heroes and possibly no point, either. That said, even though I didn’t exactly find this book enjoyable, I can admire the strange artistry and skill needed to evoke the superficial and casually violent L.A. landscape. The narrator does a good job of inhabiting a weak, detached character who cares about nothing of importance and sounds like he has a really punchable face.

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    5 out of 5 stars

A classic BEE novel.

Of course it's dark. It's Ellis. A mix of the apparent nihilism of the "latch-key" generation set in Hollywood. Beautiful wealthy teens with nothing to believe in. The hell of a constant paradise.

Its funny that he wrote about this in the 80's because I went through something very similar in the late 00's with the punk scene in NM. Angry teens with no parents in site. everyone fucked up on something and always getting in trouble I guess it took a while for the mindset to spread. Now there almost seems to be a puritanical rebound after 08. Everyone strongly believes in something and is angry. I've always been so curious to know what it would be like to be a beautiful wealthy person living amongst the elites. I think Ellis makes you see yourself for who you really are. The frustration with passivity amongst "evil" people. Yet, you're confronted with your own sick voyeuristic curiosity. "Why am I here? Why am I still reading?" Because you want to see how bad things can get. Yet, you know right from wrong. You're not that bad.

Also glad they got the same narrator from American Psycho. I think he adds style to the reading. Even makes voices for when the characters are smoking joints and holding in while talking.

Listen to his podcast if you like his books!

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Rich kids rape and trick for drugs

Didn't really care for this book, very overrated and disgusting book. All the characters are useless, wastes of time with no morals or real loyalty to each other or themselves. Clay the main character is the worst of them all cuz he just watches all this sodomy and rape go on, including a 12 yr old girl! and never does anything! Hell he even goes out with one of the guys later after the rape! shocks just to shock with no real value.

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Great debut novel, big fan of the author

It's really cool to discover an author so far into their journey, then go backwards and read their earlier (and first!) novels. You can totally see where his style initially developed. Easy read, entertaining, love how this set up his future books. Big BEE fan!

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Read with 1.5 speed

Good book. I understand what he is doing with the characters. The life portrait he paints is unbelievably soulless and narcissistic. This dude invented desperate house wives and Paris Hilton, or at least shined a light on them. All that being said it gets repetitive after a while and makes you feel like you have spent the last hour reading about nothing. Pretty amazing to think this guy wrote this book when he was 19

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Don't Hear It.

I grew up with these people and the performance completely misses the mark. I don't understand why people try to act books instead of just reading them, because every book suffers for it. There is nothing worse than hearing someone read a line and then hearing inflection stated in the text and realizing how the performance and text don't match.

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This is not an exit

Less Than Zero remains an 80s classic. Maybe some of his later books weren’t as good but Zero holds up. It’s a short listen that packs as much punch as reading it does. Well worth it!

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  • Overall
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Cycle of Adulthood

He described Los Angles lifestyle with pure truth. If you are a fan of existential philosophy and absurdism then Less than zero maybe is your best read. *Warning* Sex, Drugs, and Depression are all in this book plus my be suitable for college students.

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    5 out of 5 stars

LA Nihilism at its Best

Ellis' frst book is a timeless classic of wealthy excess in the California hills. It follows the daily routines of privileged teens and based on the author's own experience. A good listen for those who love the culture of the 1980s. Not at all like the movie.

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