The Devil In You

Play the Imperial Bedrooms 'choose your own adventure'.

I got 87%.

Learning Self-Pleasure From Ellis Books

ShortList did an interview with Bret.

And who knew all the great things you could learn from an Ellis book.

Older women do not like my work. But many young women do. I had a shocking example in Manhattan when I did a reading -- a lot of people showed up. I'm the oldest person in the room, there was this girl there, 23, 24, and she had two copies of American Psycho and she leaned in as I was signing and whispered, "This is the book that taught me how to masturbate." So I have a very wide audience.

The Cultural Significance Of Ellis

Russ Marshalek has an article on Imperial Bedrooms and the cultural significance of Bret for Creative Loafing

Beckerman Interviews Ellis

Marty Beckerman did an interview with Bret about Imperial Bedrooms that has just been posted at the Daily Beast.

With Imperial Bedrooms Ellis has returned to the birthplace of that style, and although he cannot answer the "why" questions, he is adamant that he did it for himself, not for us. "I don't think about the reader--ever--and I don't care," Ellis says. "The reader is me."

Imperial Bedrooms Released!

If you didn't pre-order it, go out and buy it today.

Lionel Shriver Rises To Top, Pisses On Everyone

Author Lionel Shriver is shocked to find out that the more a book is promoted, the better it is received (generally) by the public. Then she picks the easy target and uses Bret Easton Ellis as her poster-boy.

She went on to cast aspersions on the successes of some best-selling authors whose writing was simply not very good, she thought, but whose books were aided by the benefit of the powerful publishing publicity machine - citing Bret Easton Ellis' latest book, Imperial Bedrooms, as one such example.

"There are a lot of books that end up selling that aren't very good. I've just read Bret Easton Ellis' new book and it's awful but it's had a big publicity campaign.

"I'm writing a 1,500 word review of it - the size of which alone will overwhelm what I say. It's not a case of cream rising to the top but skimmed milk rising - of the 'no fat' kind. The book doesn't deserve the attention. It's ghastly. In the meantime, there are lots of books that will not be reviewed," she said.

Wow, how bitter can you get? Imperial Bedrooms is not 'ghastly'. Its a solid book made more interesting/important by the fact that it uses the characters from the iconic Less Than Zero.

It appears to me that she's pissed because she had a difficult time getting industry folks and the public to read and like her work - then finally broke thru. Now that she's went thru the hard road, its the only legitimate road to use.

I'll put more stock into what she's saying when I hear about her shunning any publicity for her next novel. Oh, and when you win an award, say 'thank you', smile and move along. Complaining about winning awards is extremely unbecoming.

NY Mag Talks To Ellis

New York Magazine has an interview with Bret up where he talks a bit about Imperial Bedrooms (release date is June 15th).

Bret addressed one of the common complaints that I heard when it was announced that he was writing a sequel to Less Than Zero - that he could only screw it up. You've got this great book that is held in high regard, why bother revisiting those characters, that scene when the chances of living up to the original book are so slight.

"I think Less Than Zero is something that really can't be fucked with, in a way. It has its reputation. I don't think the sequel is going to mess it up."

BretEastonEllis.com Re-Launch

The Official Bret Easton Ellis website has officially re-launched for Imperial Bedrooms. The site includes an excerpt of the first couple of sections of the new book.

Imperial Bedrooms is set or a June 15, 2010 release.

Imperial Bedrooms Is Dark!

I finished up reading Imperial Bedrooms last night. I need to figure out how to write about it without dropping spoilers everywhere.

Overall, excellent book, and it'll translate easily into a movie.

Bret Interviewed In Vice Magazine

Vice Magazine has a 10 page interview with Bret. Lots of Imperial Bedrooms discussion.

I thought this was an interesting exchange:

Vice Magazine - I guess that people probe you about the autobiographical stuff so much because, when Less Than Zero came out, you were not just seen as a novelist. It was this voice-of-a-generation thing, and people lazily thought, "Well, he must be just like the people in the book because he's their age and he shares some background details with them." So you were marketed as a novelist but also as something more than a novelist. In a way, it was a book marketer's dream. Is that what you meant when you talked earlier about being exploited?

Bret Easton Ellis - Well, you know, it was fun at first. It was very fun. It seemed like a good idea to be interviewed for magazines and have your picture taken and be on television and stuff. But then it stops. After about a year, it's not a good idea anymore. Because what you realize has happened is that your identity--your real identity--is being consumed by this new narrative, this collective narrative, that's taking place with the public as well as the press. The real you is dying and this thing that's created is now going to be representative of you. And every time you meet someone, you know that they're going to have this entire set of associations, mostly fake, about who you are, and that is a difficult thing to process. I've got to tell you, it's a very difficult thing to kind of dismantle and work with.

That answer surprises me given that he made himself a character in Lunar Park.

Ellis Talks Film Adaptations At LA Times Event

At the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend, Bret said he thinks Imperial Bedrooms will get optioned by Fox Searchlight.

He also provided some long-overdue info on the status of the Lunar Park film (its been almost a year since I wrote anything about it).

Lunar Park is in production, said Ellis; Jude Law may replace Benicio Del Toro, who Ellis knows and likes. He was set to play the role, but Ellis thought Del Toro was miscast. Ellis doesn't see himself as Jude Law either.M

Imperial Bedrooms Tidbits

Josh Dies has a review of Imperial Bedrooms up already. (bah - I haven't even had time to crack mine open!)

PopCandy is asking whether people are excited about Imperial Bedrooms.

Win Imperial Bedrooms

Win a signed copy of Imperial Bedrooms.

if you #followfriday @breteastonellis u could win a signed copy of IMPERIAL BEDROOMS. 1 winner each wk for the nxt 8 weeks #breteastonellis

1st Imperial Bedrooms Review

Publisher's Weekly has the first review of Imperial Bedrooms (SPOILER - review contains minor plot outline) that I've seen so far.

Ellis fans will delight in the characters and Ellis's easy hand in manipulating their fates, and though the novel's synchronicity with Zero is sublime, this also works as a stellar stand-alone.

I got my review copy late last week, so hopefully I can find time to actually read it!

April 04, 2010
LINK

Category: Imperial Bedrooms
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Andrew McCarthy Narrates Imperial Bedrooms Audiobook

The audiobook version of Imperial Bedrooms will be read by ... Andrew McCarthy.

First step towards a movie sequel?

Imperial Bedrooms Alternate Cover

So I was poking around the Amazon site after a commenter mentioned that Imperial Bedrooms was listed at 192 pages, and noticed some conflicting information and an alternate book cover.

The hardcover, audio and Kindle editions of the book are all listed with a June 15, 2010 release date, and the hardcover does indeed say 192 pages.

But there is another hardcover listed in the available formats. It has a release date of July 2, 2010 and a page count of 256. It also has this yellow background version of the cover we've seen previously.

Imperial Bedrooms Cover and Synopsis

Thanks to a tipster, we now have a cover and synopsis for Imperial Bedrooms (link is a PDF). Because the PDF is located in an international site for Random House, its possible that the cover we are seeing is not what the final US edition will look like. Here's the cover, and the synopsis is after the jump:

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First Line of Imperial Bedrooms

Via his Twitter account, Bret reveals the first line of 'Imperial Bedrooms'.

They had made a movie about us.

Time Out New York

Time Out New York has a short interview with Bret about The Informers film and his upcoming novel, Imperial Bedrooms. They asked a good question about how difficult it was for Bret to put himself back into the proper frame of mind to write about the Less Than Zero characters again.

It was difficult to get back into this guy's voice, even though he's my age. He's in his forties, and it has been 20-some years since the events of that book took place. And now we meet this narrator again at another point in his life. Of course, he's older and wiser and maybe a little bit creepier than he was in the original. It's still essentially the same guy. I had to go back and do a variation on that voice and style of writing. It was a strange position to be in. Can't say it was totally pleasurable, but it was interesting to see how this works.

Thanks to Jack for the heads up on this interview.

Bret In Men's Vogue International

The newest issue of Men's Vogue International has an interview with BEE. The only thing I can find online is a short excerpt in French. The English language cover can be seen here. He apparently talks a bit about Imperial Bedrooms.

Thanks to Matt for the link. Babelfish translation of the French excerpt after the jump.

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Imperial Bedrooms Complete!

Whole bunch of news nuggets today.

Bret's new novel, Imperial Bedrooms is complete and will hit shelves in May 2010. He's also working on trying to re-unite the original case of Less Than Zero for a potential film version of Imperial Bedrooms.

Thanks to Joe McGinnis Jr. for the heads up.

After the jump are some quotes from Bret about Imperial Bedrooms.

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Next For Ellis: Imperial Bedrooms?

So a couple weeks ago I received a copy of The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr. and as I'm prepping to write a review of it last night (I'm about 1/3 thru with the book currently - its excellent so far) and I come across this review in the Washington City Paper that happened to include a huge tidbit of Bret Easton Ellis News.

Like Ellis' 1985 novel about Los Angeles party kids, Less Than Zero, The Delivery Man's title was inspired by an Elvis Costello song. (So was Ellis' forthcoming novel, a Less Than Zero sequel titled Imperial Bedrooms.)

During the book tour for Lunar Park, Ellis consistently gave the answer that a sequel to Less Than Zero was likely his next project. So now that we've got a title, what do you think of the idea of a sequel?