Less Than Zero

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses rape, drug addiction and overdose, and graphic violence.

Clay is the novel’s first-person narrator and protagonist and the archetypal spoiled, wealthy teenager of 1980s Los Angeles. Clay is a disaffected individual whose narrative style is notably detached. The novel begins with his return from the fictional Camden College in New Hampshire for Christmas break, and the events of the novel take place within his four-week vacation. Although the reader can discern based on others’ reactions to Clay that he is very good-looking—his friend Ateef says, “You look great” (60), and Blair calls him “a beautiful boy” (192)–Ellis does not give a detailed description of Clay’s physical appearance. The only detail given is a moment in which Clay looks in the mirror and admits, “I do need a tan” (32).

Clay is described more strongly by his actions, which showcase him as a passive, apathetic teenager who idles away his vacation snorting cocaine, drinking, and having sex with several characters: a USC student, Griffin; a nameless teenager he meets at a club; and his girlfriend, Blair).

None of Ellis’s narrators is particularly likeable; however, the reader gets the sense that Clay’s disgust at the closing chapter’s rape scene might indeed be a sign of promise for his otherwise unredeemed character and that Clay’s decision to return to college in New Hampshire (unlike his friend, Daniel) promises to save him from unsavory Los Angeles culture in which he was raised.