This decidedly offbeat first novel offers a mixed message to all those who might be worried about contemporary teenagers. On the one hand, the example of its author looks hopeful: Bret Easton Ellis, 21, is a student at Bennington College and obviously an enterprising and successful young man. But the story he tells about members of his generation is lurid in the extreme. Most readers who are not helplessly zonked on sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll will finish Less Than Zero with the conviction that they have not fretted over the current condition of young people nearly enough.
Clay, 18,...