Bret Easton Ellis: The Brilliant and Enigmatic Voice of Generation X
An Author Profile
“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.” These are the first words I ever read by Bret Easton Ellis. They are the first words from his debut novel Less Than Zero in 1985, and from that first sentence, I knew he was going to be… different. He’s definitely been that, ultimately becoming the literary voice of both the 1980s and Generation X. As part of my ongoing Author Profile series, let’s meet him.
Bret Easton Ellis was born in Los Angeles on March 7, 1964. I wonder sometimes if my affinity for Ellis and his work stems from the fact that when I discovered his novel (at 19 years old) he was the first writer I ever read that I could have gone to high school with. My favorite writers up to that point were long dead or decades older than me. That someone near my age could have created something as unique and powerful as Less Than Zero was eye-opening.
Ellis attended the Buckley School in Los Angeles then moved to the opposite coast for college, attending Bennington College in Vermont with such other notable Literary Brat Pack members as Donna Tartt, Jill Eisenstadt, and Jonathan Lethem. It was while a student at Bennington that Ellis completed Less Than Zero.
