"If Ellis-or anyone else-wants to write about the sordid world of money and fame, the real achievement would be uncovering what's vital and sentient beneath the insipid numbness, or revealing a path toward it without false redemption or sentimentality. Ellis accepts the status quo, presumes there's nothing but the narrow range of feeling it circumscribes, and in doing so, tacitly endorses it. His author photo may be a joke about narcissism, but facts are facts: The guy spent two days posing for his picture." -This is kind of a review of Bret Easton Ellis' Imperial Bedrooms, but there's a bunch of other stuff going on as well.

The place where Bret Easton Ellis came to talk about his new novel Imperial Bedrooms could best be described as Bret Easton Ellisian. It is a rock club on Sydney's Oxford Street, called the Oxford Art Factory, that looks and feels like it was modeled on a party from the film version of Less Than Zero. It's split into two rooms divided by a huge floor to ceiling window of sound-proof glass. One room houses DJs and a giant wall given over to a rotation of street artists who paint it over every few months. The other room is the band room, with a stage and tiers. There's a popcorn [...]