Books: Less Than a Hero

Bret Easton Ellis, America's most notorious author, wrote a novel starring himself. How true is it?

Bret Easton Ellis keepsĀ getting up to go to the bathroom. He gets up three times during the course of a two-hour lunch. And he's kind of sniffly too--keeps blowing his nose. So, naturally, I ask him if he's doing coke in there. Ellis thinks this is funny.

For the record, Ellis pleads allergies, but you can see why one would ask. He became famous in 1985, at the tender age of 21, for his novel Less Than Zero, a not-very-tender account of the empty-eyed, drug-drenched L.A. teen-party scene, and along the way he acquired a reputation as a pretty hard-partying hombre...

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