Bret Easton Ellis' new book "Imperial Bedrooms", June 15 '10

[johnfoyle]

http://www.calendarlive.com/cl-ca-ellis ... 6861.story

Bret Easton Ellis, two decades beyond 'Zero'

The onetime enfant terrible, now 44, still has no patience for critics, but some of his colleagues say Ellis' writing may one day get the respect it deserves.

By Scott Timberg
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 23, 2008

IN his 1985 breakout novel, "Less Than Zero," Bret Easton Ellis, then all of 21 years old, created young, jaded Angelenos who just didn't care about anything: They recounted cocaine scores and semi-anonymous sex in the same tone with which they lamented their fading suntans. That ennui became Ellis' literary signature, and as he began to grow up in public, he became known as a photogenic and glamorous figure who liked booze and excess.

More than two decades later and almost four years after returning home to L.A., the city in which he grew up as the offspring of affluent Goldwater Republicans, Ellis himself claims to be in a phase in which he just doesn't care about anything -- a middle-aged wrinkle on the old Ellis ennui. "The only thing I care about," he requested when setting up a dinner interview, "is valet parking and a full bar."

Ellis in person is witty if often deadpan, good company, discussing the literary novel and popular music with enthusiasm and authority. His classic good looks have become almost conventional as he's aged. He's more down-to-earth, and more intellectual, than his party-boy image would suggest.

He can be uncomfortable as well: Sitting down at a tighter-than-expected Campanile one recent Wednesday night, wearing a black jacket over a casual shirt left mostly unbuttoned, he was unnerved by a slightly raucous, beret-wearing family at a nearby table, until his first drink arrived and he found himself in a spirited defense of Elvis Costello's "Imperial Bedroom." As he leaned into the argument -- the album, which he called "sonically, an absolute '80s masterpiece," will lend its name to a new sequel to "Less Than Zero" -- it was easy to see that he's more engaged with things than he lets on.

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According to this site -
http://www.notanexit.net/

the book may not appear until 2010.

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Elvis was, of course , suitably, vicious about Bret, especially in this 1989 Rolling Stone interview -

http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/ ... 0601a.html

(extract)

Q: On "God's Comic", you get a zinger off at Andrew Lloyd Webber. You may have blown your chances to collaborate with Webber.

A: I'm heartbroken. That and the knighthood. The two are connected, I suppose.

Q: When you introduce the song, you suggest God is a Bret Easton Ellis fan. Have you ever met Ellis?

A: I met Bret once, yeah. [Breaks into a parody of Ellisian prose] I walked into a bar, Bret was standing there. He looked disinterested. I took some more cocaine. He didn't look any better. I had another vodka. The vodka didn't make me feel any happier, so I switched on MTV. I wanted to fuck Blaine, but Blaine didn't want to fuck me, so I called up Judy, she came over. She gave Blaine a blow job. I fell asleep. I woke up, I felt disinterested.

Q: You have your fist novel halfway written.

A: Well, I have Bret's novel halfway written, at least [laughs].

[johnfoyle]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030726 ... 0307266109



Imperial Bedrooms
~ Bret Easton Ellis
This title will be released on June 15, 2010.

http://popcultureworldnews.com/imperialbedroomrelease/


Brett Easton Ellis’s follow-up to LESS THAN ZERO to be released this summer

Apr 23rd, 2010

By Scott Hopkins

Author Brett Easton Ellis returns this summer to the glitzy land of cocaine and cocktails with his long awaited sequel to the cult classic, LESS THAN ZERO. Maintaining his theme of borrowing a title from the Elvis Costello song book, IMPERIAL BEDROOM revisits the characters Clay and Blair, twenty-five years later, as they struggle (and perhaps snort?) their way through middle age in the city of lost angels.

Of course the net is buzzing with speculation that we might get a film reuniting Robert Downey Jr., James Spader, Andrew McCarthy and Jamie Gertz but, if you’re an odds player, it’d probably be safer to bet against that happening. The truth is, the movie business has changed so much in the twenty-three years since the angsty brats first hit the multiplex, it’s unlikely a major studio would green light LESS THAN ZERO today, let alone bankroll a sequel about midlife crisis starring Gertz and McCarthy.

There is a fair chance however, (provided Ellis’s new book does well and generates enough interest), we could get a decent indie out of it. I suspect much of that is going to depend on what Brett has done with the two most interesting characters from the original, Julian and Rip, played in the film by Downey Jr. and Spader respectively.

The best news for fans of the original flick is that Andrew McCarthy has recently recorded the audio version of the novel. No doubt this will be a book for the beach this summer, only question is, will we be reading it ourselves or listening to Clay reading it for us?

[wordnat]

Wonder if he has the balls to call his next one "Momofuku"?

[johnfoyle]

May 19, 2010

Exclusive Excerpt: Read the Beginning of Bret Easton Ellis' New Book

In Imperial Bedrooms, the author reintroduces the same characters from his classic, Less than Zero. A quarter-century later, the same drug-addled despair.

By Bret Easton Ellis

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/fiction/bret-eas ... z0oOxbOJL4

[johnfoyle]

http://8tracks.com/knopfdoubleday/imper ... -14-tracks

"Music from the book IMPERIAL BEDROOMS
by Bret Easton Ellis. On sale June 15,
2010. Learn more at
breteastonellis.com."

[scielle]

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/l ... llis-53503

Queen Elizabeth Hall
BRET EASTON ELLIS
Tuesday 13 July 2010, 7:30pm

Always controversial and incisive, Bret Easton Ellis is one of the leading novelists of our age. He returns to Southbank Centre to launch his latest novel, Imperial Bedrooms, which re-unites Clay and the characters from Less Than Zero as they confront middle-age in contemporary Los Angeles. This is a world of rehab, plastic surgery and betrayal, with Clay and his circle battling familiar personal demons. Bret Easton Ellis discusses his writing and takes questions from the audience.

BOOK TICKETS NOW
Prices: £10
Booking Fee: £1.45 (Members £0.00)
Concessions: 50% off (limited availability)

[scielle]

http://london.lecool.com/london/en/2401

club night
Blood and Passion in the Imperial Bedrooms

Anyone who remembers that scene in Less Than Zero might be understandably nervous about attending a party themed around a book by Brett Easton Ellis. I mean, you pop in for a quiet pint, and end up tied to bed while bored yuppies do unspeakable things to you (possibly just a normal Saturday night for some of our readers). Nope, this is a little more salubrious, but with just enough of that BEE edge to set it aside from your usual lit-fest. For a start it’s in a Dalston basement club. Secondly the rather wonderful Damon Martin from Disco Bloodbath and Andy Bainbridge from Bad Passion are DJing. And thirdly there are copies of his very well received sequel to LTZ, Imperial Bedrooms, on offer in a prize draw. Just remember – stay out of the bedrooms.

where
Question Mark Bar, 129 Stoke Newington High Street, London N16 0PH

when
July 17 2010
10pm - late

how much
Free from rsvp@millco.co.uk

[thepopeofpop]

BBC 4 ran a 5 minute feature on Bret Easton Ellis on their World News program last night.

It was mentioned that Ellis' idol is Elvis Costello - and following this "Beyond Belief" was played while Ellis' new novel was discussed.

[johnfoyle]

Diddums!

http://www.theawl.com/2010/08/bret-east ... y-about-me

August 11, 2010

(extract)

"If I look back on my career and think of one of the moments that stung the most, it was the realization that Elvis Costello was making fun of me in magazines," he said. "And I remember the first time I met Elvis Costello was in a bar in Beverly Hills, right around when Less Than Zero came out. And I was with my friend, who was drunk—and hot, by the way. And my friend is like, 'Elvis Costello is over there!' And I said, 'No, no, I really can’t deal with that.' And my friend insists, like, 'You gotta meet him!' So my friend shambles over and drags Elvis Costello back to our table, and he was very, very polite. And I was extremely embarrassed."

"Then about six months later he gave an interview to Rolling Stone, and in the middle of the interview, he was asked, 'What do you think of Bret Easton Ellis?' And he went on a pitch perfect dismantling of the prose style of Less Than Zero, like: Oh yeah, Bret comes up to me in a restaurant in Beverly Hills. His friend is drunk, he offers me a line, we go into the bathroom. Then Bret goes out and blows his friend. I watch, I’m bored. So yeah, I don’t think much of Bret Easton Ellis.' And I’m reading that in a magazine, and I shrunk a little bit. It was a moment. I was 22 and I was insulted by my idol. And that was a moment. It makes you grow up fast. And it makes you look at the world much more differently than if you are 22 are you are not insulted—in print—by your idol.’

http://www.elviscostello.info/articles/ ... 0601a.html

[johnfoyle]

Another perspective -

http://typingspace.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/talk/

August 13, 2010

Typing Space blogs -


(extract)

Bret cites this as a somewhat pivotal moment in his life: he met Elvis Costello. Elvis was polite, congenial. Later Bret reads interviews in two separate magazines, interviews where Elvis Costello is asked how he feels about having a novelist use his image and lyrics in a book. As a response, Elvis parodies Ellis’ own writing style – something like ‘I met Bret. He was drunk. We did lines of coke in the bathroom. I was bored.’ – clearly indicating he is not a fan of the work. This, Bret claims, will be quite a moment for anyone. Realising that someone who has been extremely influential on you does not have any admiration for you work, and in fact will publicly satirise your style, is a big thing. You have to wonder after Bret’s finished saying this though, is there any sort of embellishment here? Are they friends? Like his story featuring Tom Cruise (he’s never heard from him since inviting him to a party; they both own apartments in the same building) it could be exaggerated for the purposes of interview. But then that would be suitable, wouldn’t it? Like you said or did not say, we’ve all read Lunar Park.

[johnfoyle]

From Mojo, Oct. 10