"The images I had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. Images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children. Images of people, teenagers my own age, ...

I was 18 in the late summer of 1986 when I bought a paperback copy of "Less Than Zero," the debut novel by Bret Easton Ellis. I hadn't heard of the book or the Elvis Costello song from which it nicked ...