Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses rape, drug addiction and overdose, sex work, and graphic violence.

Less Than Zero is very critical of elite society, specifically as far as the family unit is concerned. The families that appear in Less Than Zero are not happy, nor do they often exhibit conventional family structure. Of course, the departure from the conventional family structure is not what makes them reproachable; instead, it is the lack of concern that they show for one another.

Clay’s girlfriend, Blair, is the daughter of a successful film producer. Blair’s father is dating a model-perfect man, Jared. At the party where Clay meets Jared, he also meets Blair’s mother “who is sitting at the bar, drinking a vodka gimlet” (8). One of Blair’s friends comments, “Oh God, I wish Blair’s father wouldn’t invite Jared to these things. It makes her mother so nervous” (9). The heavy use of hard drugs and drinking at the party, which takes place early in the novel, establishes these characters' environment as one in which the young adults’ reckless behaviors echo those of their self-absorbed, frequently absent parents.

In Beverly Hills, Clay’s sisters are shopping for their father’s Christmas gift.