The Thousands

If you’re not the bookish type (shame on you, jock!) then you’ll probably only know Bret Easton Ellis from that Christian Bale movie you once saw: American Psycho. He wrote it.

If you are the bookish type, however, then you’ll know that his debut was Less Than Zero. And if you’re A-grade, level-60 bookish, you’ll know that Imperial Bedrooms is its sequel, revisiting the characters 25 years later.

Bedrooms surprises with a relatively linear plot for Ellis; it’s also largely a genre piece: a noir, complete with paranoia, murders, femmes fatale, and a slowly unravelling mystery. For fans it’s a nifty examination of how 25 years has changed Ellis and his creations: Clay, our narrator, is too skinny these days, rather than too tan; the characters now have iPhones, but still wear Ray Bans; Bat for Lashes is name-checked, and American Apparel is hinted at. Overall, Bedrooms is intensely readable, and at 175 pages, you can polish it off in a weekend! But, if you’re a jock, I guess you’ll just wait for the movie.