. >> i thought of less than zero when i want to refamiliarize myself with a writer named brett zenelis and make sure i was up to date with who this guy was and had not looked at less than zero since the publication in 1985 and i reread the book in 2005 and it was okay. it was fine. i thought it was pretty well written for someone who was 19 or 20 and something happened after i read it asking where is he now and where is that 19-year-old boy and i began to have this internal dialog in my head and began answering questions i kept asking myself that led to an outline and making more notes and that led to an ultimately the novel. >> charlie: is this a sequel for something else. my publisher likes to refer to it as a sequel but i wasn't interested end returning to the group scene of less than zero because i never saw it as a grou group portrait of a generation and clay the embodiment and i never took it as a sweeping indictment of 80s young culture in southern california but a writer has a different relationship with the book than his audience has. >> charlie: and how is it different? >> i