海角大神

It鈥檚 been 20 years since Martin Amis published his memoir, 鈥淓xperience,鈥� which was both a surprisingly tender, generous portrait of his famous father, Kingsley Amis, and a defensive account of his personal tribulations in the 1990s, including divorce, remarriage, and extensive dental work. Now, at 71, having attained the legal age of reminiscence, Amis delivers 鈥淚nside Story,鈥� a big, thumping autobiographical novel, which he says is 鈥渁lmost certainly my last long novel.鈥�

Amis has packed more than comfortably fits between covers in this often moving, mostly entertaining and stimulating, but sometimes exhausting manifesto on love, sex, literature, politics, parenting, writing, aging, and mortality. In the vein of his paternal portrait in 鈥淓xperience,鈥� 鈥淚nside Story鈥� offers heartfelt tributes to three cherished, seminal influences 鈥� poet Philip Larkin, a family friend; novelist Saul Bellow, a mentor and father figure; and essayist Christopher Hitchens, his best friend. In an addendum, Amis also extends a tribute to his father鈥檚 second wife, novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, whom he says got him reading, rescued him from academic indifference as a teenager, and, along with his father, provided a template for the writing life 鈥� before she bolted from her difficult, frequently inebriated third husband.聽

Amis announces up front that his book 鈥渨on鈥檛 read like a novel 鈥� more like a collection of linked short stories, with essayistic detours.鈥� The difficulty of what he calls 鈥渓ife-writing鈥� is that life 鈥渋s shapeless, it does not point to and gather round anything, it does not cohere.鈥� He suggests reading 鈥淚nside Story鈥� 鈥渋n fitful bursts, with plenty of skipping and postponing and doubling back.鈥� And he adds, 鈥淢y heart goes out to those poor dabs, the professionals (editors and reviewers), who鈥檒l have to read the whole thing straight through, and against the clock.鈥�

I鈥檓 one of those 鈥減oor dabs,鈥� and I鈥檓 happy to report that I survived the marathon. Even when this book doesn鈥檛 entirely cohere, Amis鈥� prose is always coherent, and often dazzling. High points include those portraits of his literary touchstones, even through sobering descriptions of their waning days.聽

This is not what Amis calls a 鈥渂abble novel,鈥� with the author ranting on and on. Still, it鈥檚 a tsunami of words, and what makes it more pleasurable than one might expect is that Amis has written 鈥淚nside Story鈥� from a position of gratitude rather than anger or self-pity. There is strikingly less of the 鈥渁cid in his inkwell鈥� that critic John Leonard flagged in his New York Times review of 鈥淓xperience鈥� in 2000.聽

Among the things Amis expresses gratitude for are his wife, American-Uruguayan writer Isabel Fonseca, and his five children 鈥� two sons from his first marriage, two daughters from his second, and an elder daughter from a youthful fling, whom he didn鈥檛 know about until she was 19 鈥� all of whose names are altered in the book. Particularly lovely is his description of his youngest daughter singing to herself as 鈥渁 ventilation of happiness.鈥�

鈥淚nside Story鈥� is, among other things, a paean to family. The desire for a family, we learn, is what finally pushes Amis to end a torturous and at times hilarious five-year relationship with Phoebe Phelps, scenes of which are woven through the novel. A businesswoman (the nature of whose business he鈥檚 laughably slow to learn), Phoebe declares off the bat that she has no interest in marriage or children. The sordid details of their affair 鈥� often written with the protection of 鈥渢he loincloth of the third person鈥� and then discussed with his buddy 鈥淗itch鈥� 鈥� read as fiction. In fact, Amis says that this complicated character is a fictional amalgam of several women he鈥檚 dated.

Amis has long been lambasted by the British press, and he鈥檚 bound to raise hackles again with sexist remarks about 鈥渢he birds鈥� he made hay with in his heyday, his pronouncements on Israel, the Holocaust, Iraq, and the refugee crisis, plus his barely acknowledged and considerable privilege. He mentions vacation homes in East Hampton, New York; West Palm Beach, Florida; Uruguay; and a six-bedroom house near Regent鈥檚 Park in London 鈥� replaced in 2011 by a Brooklyn townhouse, when he and his family left England for the United States. After a chimney fire on the last night of 2016 sends him and a daughter into their Brooklyn street, he comments with appalling tone deafness, 鈥淭he two Amises had very temporarily joined the 60,000 homeless of New York City.鈥�

Like this ambitious project, the title 鈥淚nside Story鈥� works on multiple levels. It suggests that we鈥檙e getting the author鈥檚 deeply personal lowdown. But it鈥檚 also a clever reference to Amis鈥� quirky and rather charming decision to address this book to a dear reader, whom he instructs on what writing entails. While some of his advice is trite (鈥淲riters must find their own way to their own voice鈥�), there are also good tips here. (鈥淪hun all vogue phrases,鈥� he cautions, because prose should be 鈥減urpose-built, and not mass-produced.鈥�) The book is pleasurably infused with literary references, and Amis鈥� love of literature and appreciation and respect for readers shines through. He reminds us that 鈥渁 tale, a teller, is nothing without a listener. ... Readers are your guests. ... [D]on鈥檛 be baffling and indigestible.鈥� Or, he adds, overwhelming.

鈥淚nside Story鈥� is at times overwhelming. Much of the material is not new, and much could have been cut. The irritatingly distracting footnotes are decidedly not reader-friendly. Redundancies from his earlier publications heighten the sense that we鈥檙e reading an anthology or a valedictory summing up. Or, perhaps, a greatest hits.

In addition to 海角大神, Heller McAlpin reviews books regularly for NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times.