Less Than Zero

**In 1985, years before American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis shocked, stunned and disturbed the world with his debut novel, Less Than Zero. This 40th anniversary edition of the cult classic novel contains an introduction by Rachel Kushner, the Booker Prize-nominated author of Creation Lake and The Mars Room.** ‘Unstoppable . . . The impeccable timing captures the banalities of Clay’s life in a way that both disgusts me and breaks my heart’ – Ottessa Moshfegh, author of My Year of Rest Eighteen-year-old Clay has come home to LA for Christmas break after his first term at college. Clay is three things: rich, bored, and looking to get high. Reacquainting himself with a world of privilege and limitless indulgence, Clay steps back into the hedonism and moral depravity of his life in California. With its relentless scenes of grotesque brutality, Less Than Zero is an unflinching portrait of a lost generation in revolt. Published when he was just twenty-one, Less Than Zero held an excoriating mirror up to the culture of excess and vapidity of 1980s Los Angeles and made Bret Easton Ellis an instant literary sensation. ‘One of the most telling and striking chroniclers of the void beneath our consumerist society’ – The Guardian ‘Deadly serious social satires masquerading as generic pulp workouts’ – Esquire ‘He is the model of literary filial piety, counting among his parents Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, and Joan Didion’ – The Washington Post

A disturbing portrayal of privileged and immoral LA teenagers, Less Than Zero is a cult classic. With an introduction by Otessa Moshfegh, author of Lapvona.In 1985, Bret Easton Ellis shocked, stunned and disturbed with his debut novel, Less Than Zero. Published when he was just twenty-one, this extraordinary and instantly infamous work has become a rare thing: a cult classic and a timeless embodiment of the zeitgeist. Filled with relentless drinking in seamy bars and glamorous nightclubs, wild, drug-fuelled parties, and dispassionate sexual encounters, Less Than Zero is narrated by Clay, an eighteen-year-old student returning home to Los Angeles for Christmas. Bret Easton Ellis's debut novel is a fierce coming-of-age story, justifiably celebrated for its unflinching depiction of hedonistic youth, its brutal portrayal of the inexorable consequences of such moral depravity, and its author’s refusal to condone or chastise such behaviour.Less Than Zero has done more than simply define a genre: it continues to be a landmark in the lives of successive generations of readers across the globe.Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.