Imperial Bedrooms - Reception

Reception

The Guardian attempted to aggregate what they found to be polarised reviews of Imperial Bedrooms, noting that one Times reviewer felt the novel was simply dull, "impoverished", and "ghastly", whereas the London Review of Books felt that in spite of its flaws, the book was enjoyable for its "beautiful one-liners" and the fun of "seeing the old Easton Ellis magic applied to the popular culture of our era ... iPhones, Apple stores, internet videos and Lost." The New Statesman compiled reviews from The Independent, The Observer, and The New York Times. The first two reviews are positive, praising Ellis' "modern noir", the book's "atmosphere", and indebtedness to Philip Roth and F. Scott Fitzgerald, with the Observer saying it "ranks with his best in the latter register ." The latter review accused Ellis of falling flat, attracting negative comparison to Martin Amis; both have "a flair for such perfect, surreal description" but "struggle to set it in an effective context." Other writers attempting to gauge the book's reception also describe it as "mixed". The Periscope Press deemed that the novel's reviews were mostly negative, citing Dr. Alison Kelly's article for The Guardian as the only counter-example, while deeming that it "still read more like restrained criticism than outright praise". On the subject of reviews, British critic Mark Lawson notes the tendency for Ellis' reviews to be "unpredictable"; he cited the irony of favour amongst right-wing critics, and the extent to which the liberal media attack his work. Ellis himself, however, states that he "proudly" accepts the label of moralist. He also attributes some of the negative criticism that Imperial Bedrooms and Ellis' earlier works have received in the past to the earlier schools of feminist criticism; today, he observes young girls "reading the works correctly", opining the books shouldn't be read through the lens of "old school feminism." To that end, the author observes that older women reviewing Imperial Bedrooms in the US had issues with it, not least feelings of betrayal. He feels these are ironic because the book is in fact a critique of a certain kind of male perspective and behaviour.

This book has its share of horror, not least a series of gangland slayings, but then dead bodies are to a Bret Easton Ellis novel what aspidistras are to George Orwell's: part of the scenery. More noticeable is the misting of melancholy that enshrouds LA's billboards and boulevards, and the mysterious crying fits that steal over its hero... Feelings? In a novel by Bret Easton Ellis? Whatever will his fans say?

Review Tom Shone, commenting on typical and atypical features of the new novel for The Sunday Times

Tom Shone, writing for The Sunday Times, praised the novel for its atypical qualities for Ellis, "known for his orgies of violence". Shone asks "Why is a new sequel to Less Than Zero... so moving?", noting the presence of "feelings" in the novel to be starkly different from Ellis' usual style. Touching on its personal qualities, Shone notes "If Lunar Park unspooled the atrocities of American Psycho back to their source, Imperial Bedrooms pulls the thread further and reaches Less Than Zero". The emotive energy in the new book is traced back to the last pages of Lunar Park as well; fellow writer Jay McInerney observes that "The last few pages of are among the most moving passages I know in recent American fiction ... Bret was coming to terms with his relationship with his father in that book." Vice observes that the "final passages in both Imperial Bedrooms and Lunar Park pack a lot of emotional impact." San Francisco Chronicle hails Imperial Bedrooms as "the very definition of authorly meta: Ellis is either so deeply enmeshed in his own creepy little insular world that he can't write his way out of it, or else he is such a genius that he's created an entire parallel universe that folds and unfolds on itself like some kind of Escher print."

Regarding the book's achievement, Shone remarks "He now stands at year zero – creatively, psychologically." However, typical features of Ellis' earlier works remain in tact; for example, in its depictions of violence. Commenting on its self-referential aspects, Janelle Brown of the San Francisco Chronicle recommends "for his next endeavor, Ellis should stop worrying and start looking for the exit of his own personal rabbit hole." The Buffalo News awarded the novel its Editor's Choice. Jeff Simon comments that it "brings an excessive Reaganesque flavor to Obama America". With regards to the novel's writing style, he comments "The first-person sentences run on and on, but the individual sections of the book are nothing if not minimal... ghastly narcissism or not, Bret Easton Ellis has a fictional territory all his own and, heaven forbid, a mastery there." The Wall Street Journal on the other hand, described this prose style as "flat and fizzless". Such is the book's violent aesthetic that, for Eileen Battersby of The Irish Times, "the book is closer to his remarkable third novel, American Psycho". She further compliments Ellis as "a bizarrely moral writer who specializes in evoking the amoral." Concerning his writing, she notes its "despair is blunt, factual and seldom approaches the laconic unease of JG Ballard."

Following her positive comments, however, Battersby concludes negatively. The book is a "bleak performance... a tired study of the vacuous" with the feeling of an improvised screenplay being performed by an uncommitted cast. She sums that Ellis' novel "consists of too many doors being left slightly ajar, and not enough rooms, or opportunities, being fully explored." Some critics have questioned the book's relevance to a contemporary audience. Dallas News poses the question, whether Imperial Bedrooms is "a story anyone is interested in anymore", because Ellis' "blunt, spare, journal-entry prose" is no longer, in 2010, "the backstage pass" it once was to the lives of "LA's rich and famous". Furthermore, Tom Maurstrad argues that since the 1980s, that decade has become a "go-to bargain bin for retro-trends and ready-made nostalgia, easy to package into fashion lines and TV shows". The review bemoans that the novel's theme, the dark side of Hollywood, is no longer a culture-shocking revelation, and that Ellis fails to capitalize on the narratorial conceit which it opens with. Maurstrad does highlight positive aspects, however. Ellis wisely "appropriates the unblinking brutality ... American Psycho, to add some dramatic heft to this anorexic update", making the sequel a "celebrity snuff film" to the earlier "backstage pass". The Wall Street Journal damned the novel as "a dull, stricken, under-medicated nonstory that goes nowhere." The Boston Globe reviewer opined that "Ellis is aiming for noir, for the territory of James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler, but ends up with an XXX-rated episode of Melrose Place."

Andrew McCarthy, who played Clay in the 1987 Less Than Zero film, described the novel as "an exciting, shocking conclusion... a surprising one." The actor praised Clay's character, citing a "wicked vulnerability" which the character covers up with alcohol, hostility, and its portrayal of a world "full of pain and suffering and unkindness" beneath the "glossy and shimmering and seductive" veneer of Hollywood. McCarthy described his experience of reading the book as like "revisiting an old friend", owing to the consistency of the characters' and Ellis' voices.