The book's been called short stories, and it's been called a novel. It's kind of almost both, but closer to the short story idea. In a similar vein to Less than Zero, Ellis recounts tales of L.A life through a series of linked stories. There's drugs, sex, and questionable morality. But the characters who populate each story are related, or have slept with the same people, or have the same drug dealers. It's an interlinking society of people who don't know what to make of their lives, or their identities.
In common, most of them are rich and are defined by the things that they own/wear and the people they know. It's a highly vacuous way of living, but despite all the superficiality, the characters are struggling with something else. Maybe it's their familial relationships, maybe it's their sexuality, or maybe it's just what they want from life. The characters battle with themselves, but are part of a community where that doesn't seem to be okay. They spend a lot of time telling each other to just chill out, or take another valium, or do something to make the worry/pain/guilt go away.
As per Ellis, there are scenes that are just fantastically brutal: I'm not a girl to shy away from some gore or violence in her reading. But there's playful elements, and bits that are actually just funny. And tender. There's a beautiful tenderness that Ellis manages to somehow weave among all the chaos. Crazy 80s pop culture references are a fun bonus too (so says the girl who was six when The Informers was first published). It's the usual, and I don't mean that in a mundane way. I just know that when I go to Bret Easton Ellis that it's going to be good, really good. Readgasms in abundance.
So now...re-reads, I suppose. A wait for another novel. And a trip to California.
