Richard Bradford styled his biography of Martin Amis as ‘The biography’, an odious gesture that would tempt fate on even the busiest day.
Are there any scoops?
With the exception of a few mild indiscretions from Christopher Hitchens — no, there are not. Early in the piece, Bradford thanks Amis for his ‘co-operation’, which amounted to five face-to-face interviews. That spirit of co-operation dissolved into acrimony at some stage, and the publication of this book has been marred by difficulties and delays.
What are the critics saying?
It’s a stinker, they say as one.
On these pages, Sam Leith observed that Bradford struggles to describe Amis’ writing, which is a drawback for a literary biography.
‘The real trouble is, Bradford seems to be defeated by Amis’s writing. He struggles to explain it, and the opacities of his style (his usages of words such as ‘hypothesis’, ‘amanuensis’, ‘vortex’, ‘reproachful’, ‘impresario’, ‘synoptic’ and ‘momentously’ are at best eccentric) — mean that even when he seems to know what he’s saying the reader doesn’t.
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