Largo put on a really nice celebration of Bret Easton Ellis' work last night. It was a sold out event with special guests that included James Van Der Beek (who hosted), Jerry Stahl, and Joel McHale. They read excerpts from Ellis' previous novels, before the author himself came on stage to read from Imperial Bedrooms, which came out Tuesday.Van Der Beek, who played Sean Bateman in the film interpretation of The Rules of Attraction, interviewed Ellis with a mixture of funny and serious questions, some of which came from Twitter. Apparently a journalist got Ellis to join the Twitterverse when she was assigned to write a story on him when the film The Informers was coming out, which most everyone agreed didn't work. Rather than write about the author and the film, she changed the piece to his joining Twitter, which he was more than happy about. Now he says he 'tweets' about favorite films and books--stuff he wants to recommend to the world (or, the part of the world that follows him on Twitter), not about what his favorite Starbucks location is.
In the audience q&a session, Ellis shared that his early inspirations were Hemingway and Joan Didion, and one of his favorite books is Gustave Flaubert's Sentimental Education.
And then there was a signing (see above).
-- Leslie Anne Wiggins
Photo credit: the BEAT
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