The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis

Two years ago, Bret Easton Ellis' stunning first novel, Less Than Zero, became a sensational nationwide best-seller. Hailed as "electrifying" (Publishers Weekly) and "exceptional" (the Los Angeles Times), it established its twenty-year-old author as an "original, abundantly talented" (The Wall Street Journal) new voice in American fiction.

The Rules of Attraction: A Novel by Bret Easton Ellis

Now Ellis returns with The Rules of Attraction, a startling departure from his earlier novel in mood and sensibility. Set at a small liberal arts college in New England, it is a rueful but amusing look at three students entangled in a curious romantic triangle: Lauren, who changes her major every time she changes boyfriends; Paul, who is forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism; and, at the center, Sean, whose ambivalence and cynicism conceal-even from himself-his own romantic yearnings.

Through vignettes told in each of the characters' voices, we have a kaleidoscopic view of clashing expectations and crushing frustrations, of adolescent dreams fueled by inchoate desires. We also get a glimpse of the absurdities of contemporary campus life, where Thirsty Thursdays fade into Pre-Saturday Night Parties, where it's either The End of the World or The Graveyard on Fridays, and where it's all right to spend the night-so long as you don't have to eat breakfast together. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant and often hilarious-evocation of the death of romance in the 1980s.

About the Author

Bret Easton Ellis is the author of Less Than Zero. He is a graduate of Bennington College and lives in New York City.

Credit: George Corsillo, Ian Gittler