Imperial Bedrooms

At last, the seventh novel from Bret Easton Ellis has been finished. Smote with Lunar Park nearly five years ago, I rallied every ounce of my obsession and read and reread everything he had written previously. His new book is going to be released this time next year, May 2010. It's entitled, Imperial Bedrooms, and revisits the characters that earned him teenage infamy with Less Than Zero. I am positively drooling at the prospect. His characters have a tendency to crop up here and there in minor cameo roles in his other novels - the exponents of decadence frequently cross wires - but now we'll catch up with Clay, Julian, and all the rest twenty years on from the exploits of LTZ. Ellis makes very clear that his books are artifacts in themselves, and written to be read rather than adapted into films (the reason he doesn't worry about the success of the adaptations, apparently), but there's constant talk of taking his novels from the page to the big screen (if they haven't been already, of course). It sounds as though all talk about The Informers film should be piled under a D-Notice, but, moving on, Ellis has openly voiced his desire to re-cast Robert Downey Jr, who played Julian in the early film version of LTZ, the drugged-up punk/prostitute who appears quite intent on self-destruction. Supposedly, that would be disconcertingly appropriate given Downey's recent past. Read this interview with Ellis and subscribe to the information flowing out of this blog to get the full low-down on everything that matters. I'll keep us all informed.