 The action of the novel takes place twenty @-@ five years after Less Than Zero . Its story follows Clay , a New York @-@ based screenwriter , after he returns to Los Angeles to cast his new film . There he becomes embroiled in the sinister world of his former friends and confronts the darker aspects of his own personality . The novel opens with a literary device which suggests the possibility that the narrator of Imperial Bedrooms may not be the same as the narrator of Less Than Zero although both are ostensibly narrated by Clay . In doing this , Ellis is able to comment on the earlier novel 's style and on the development of its moralistic film adaptation . In the novel Ellis explores Clay 's pathological narcissism , masochistic and sadistic tendencies , and exploitative personality , which had been less explicit in Less Than Zero . Ellis chose to do this in part to dispel the sentimental reputation Less Than Zero has accrued over the years , that of " an artifact of the 1980s " . Imperial Bedrooms retains Ellis ' characteristic transgressive style and applies it to the 2000s ( decade ) and 2010s , covering amongst other things , the impact of new communication technologies on daily lives . 
