From an interview by Robert Birnbaum in The Morning News.
RB: …. Any thoughts of your next step?
BEE: Um, yeah, and every time I start to talk about it, I—
RB: It doesn’t work for you.
BEE: When I was in L.A. I reread Less Than Zero on its 20th anniversary, which was this last May, and this [was] a very sentimental thing. I don’t know why I am telling you. I would not tell an audience of readers this—oh, whatever, I don’t care. I knew the publishing date. I knew it was in May 1985, so I picked up the book that night and opened a bottle of wine, I was in L.A. and I decided to reread it. I hadn’t read it in 19 years and so I read the book and, you know, a 41-year-old writer has issues. Some problems. But I also realized if the 41-year-old writer had written that book or rewrote that book it would be much worse. It would not be a good book. The reason that it works—it’s that the guy wrote it at that age and it obviously still resonates to people that age. Something was caught there that I wasn’t aware of. The book is valid and I get why it is what it is. That’s not the problem. But I was—I started to wonder where those characters were now. They would be my age, approaching early middle age. They would probably be married, have kids, the ages that they were in Less Than Zero, and I really started thinking about doing a follow-up to that book. I also think it’s a terrible idea and it could really backfire and it could undermine everyone’s fondness for that book. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t care. If this is what is announcing itself to me, well then I am going to ultimately involuntarily pursue it and I am not going to be able to help myself.