What is the point of this book? This isn’t a rhetorical question — and it isn’t meant to be a sneer. It’s one that needs answering. We have an extremely full biography of Kingsley Amis. We have an accomplished memoir by Martin Amis. Do we need either a joint critical study of these two unalike writers, or another biography?
Neil Powell sets out his stall rather winningly. He concedes that it’s not quite a biography and not quite an academic work. He apologises for the sketchier biographical information about Martin, saying: ‘I believe it’s impertinent for the biographer or critic to poke his nose into those aspects of a living author’s privacy where his nose is least welcome.’ He says he hopes that ‘this is a decently interesting book about Kingsley and Martin Amis’.
The thing is, this is only very glancingly a book about the relationship between father and son, either as writers or as human beings.
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