Martin Amis
1989
Around 470 pages
Kingsley Amis briefly reared his ugly head on this List again, but now we are back on our Martin reads. As I have made abundantly clear, I prefer the younger Amis, but this was still a rough read. It felt like a worse version of a John Fowles novel, and I'm not surprised the movie adaptation was a mess.
The story is narrated by Samson Young, an American writer living in London who has had writer's block for 20 years and is now terminally ill. He meets Keith Talent, a small time criminal and aspiring professional darts player, at Heathrow and later encounters Nicola Six who knows that she will be murdered a few minutes after midnight on 5 November 1999 and is searching for her killer.
This is a very meta story, and like most meta stories, it is firmly lodged up in its own ass. None of the characters are likable, and of course Nicola is a strange composite of male fantasies, rather than a real person. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the setting of this one and it's interesting to see Amis' version of 1999.
Skip!
RATING: **---
Interesting Facts:
Film adaptation bombed and Amber Heard was nominated for Worst Actress.
UP NEXT: Moon Palace by Paul Auster
1 comment:
If you have writer's block for twenty years, are you still a writer? I need to ponder this. I don't think I want to read this book... and yet, I have many questions about these characters. thanks for this review!
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