Took a little getting into as Amis' tendancy to narrate in the third person and annote in the first was a little problematic once I found my flow i found this to be quite a warming story. I didn't know much of Amis' background before reading this and was utterly fascinated with the literary connections in his life. It's a frank and honest story and to have these giants of literature laid bare before us is simultaneously awe inspiring and humbling.

It's not easy to review Inside Story. On the one hand, it's engaging, intimate, broad and often beautifully phrased (as you would expect from Amis). On the other hand, it's also infuriating, clumsy and, as other reviewers have said, far far too long. There are repetitions (Vichy as Uriah Heep to Germany's Bill Sikes appears twice as does the guest/host similarity) and sections that should have been cut considerably. Of the three figures he celebrates, Amis is probably best (and insightful) on Philip Larkin; most affectionate about Christopher Hitchens; and rather disappointing on his great hero, Saul Bellow. He's sweet and sentimental about his wife and children but as he acknowledges, writing happiness is not easy. Therefore, what saves the book is the composite, grotesque figure of Phoebe Phelps, the girlfriend who haunts the book. If he'd concentrated on her, this might have been a novel to rival London Fields or Money. Instead, it's a curious mix of novel and autobiography (as well as how to write primer which really doesn't fit). Consqeuently, it's fantastic in parts but rather pointless in others. Amis writes so well he's always worth reading but this is really an opportunity unrealised.

I must admit that I have had something of a struggle with this, the latest work of someone who is undoubtedly a hugely successful and admired writer. That may be no bad thing; a novel should challenge the reader. But, in truth, this book was for me something of a curate’s egg, to use a cliché that would undoubtedly be frowned upon by the author himself. There was a lot in it that I was gripped and moved by, but there were also some substantial parts of this novel that I found much less interesting or engaging.

At least, I think it is a novel. It does, after all, say on the front cover in big friendly letters: Inside Story: A Novel. But is it? The author himself calls it a work of “life-writing;” part memoir, part novel. He goes so far as to tell the reader that the book is not roughly autobiographical but is, in fact, quite rigorously so. The trouble I had with this, as a reader, was in trying to decide who was telling me this. Was it the author Martin Amis speaking or was it a fictional “Martin Amis” acting as a sort of unreliable narrator? I seemed to be constantly asking myself what was real and what was invention. Did it matter? Not really. In the end I decided that what was important was how much of it was truthful rather than how much of it was real or invented.

There are certainly a lot of real events in the book. Nine-eleven, the Iraq War, Brexit, and Trump all feature in this novel, as do the European migrant crisis and antisemitism. A lot of real people feature as characters as well, friends, family, and other writers. We read about aspects of his relationships with his parents, Kingsley Amis and Hillary Ann Bardwell, and his stepmother, Sarah Jane Howard, but it is a triumvirate of fellow writers, Saul Bellow, Philip Larkin, and Christopher Hitchens, that lies at the heart of this work.

Larkin was, of course a good friend of the author’s father, Kingsley Amis. and the author rather teases the reader with some gossipy nonsense as well as writing with real insight about Larkin the poet and the man. The passages that describe the author’s long friendship with Saul Bellow clearly shows the respect that the two men must have had for each other and describes with touching sensitivity Bellow’s Alzheimer’s.

However, the most affecting parts of this book are the sections devoted to Christopher Hitchens. We see the two of them as young, rather cocky men, enjoying life and the fruits of their successful careers. We see their closeness, their intellectual intimacy. And we certainly see the admiration that Amis must have had for the wit and fearless intelligence of Hitchens. This, at any rate, is what I sensed when reading the author’s reconstructions or reinventions of their conversations. And the most moving passages of all in this novel/memoir are those devoted to Christopher Hitchens’ battle with oesophageal cancer. There can been few of us who had read any of Hitchens’ work or seen him talk on tv or YouTube that did not feel great sadness that such a decent, humane, and fiercely articulate voice has been silenced far too soon. Amis perfectly describes his admiration and devotion to Hitchens in those final years.

There is another enjoyable thread that runs through this book and that is the author’s regular habit of sharing advice on the art and techniques of writing.

The part of the book I liked least was the part that I have assumed is the most fictionalised and that is the story of a young Martin Amis’ relationship with a dominating yet apparently damaged young woman who is given the name Phoebe Phelps. These parts of the books seemed to be recreating the dated and, these days, unattractive attitudes of a young white privileged male of the 1970s or 1980s.

The rest of the book is made up of passages and episodes that appear to have been dropped in almost at random such that for me at least the book never really combines into a coherent whole. Because of that and while, as I say, parts are very moving, parts are engaging and interesting, almost all of it is beautifully written (as you would expect from a such an accomplished writer), parts of it struck me as a little bit self-indulgent, unsatisfactory either as fiction or memoir, and the book, as a whole, had the air of having been cobbled together from spare parts that had been found lying around.

I would like to express my thanks to Net Galley and Vintage/Jonathan Cape for making a free download of this book available to me.

This book is such a mix of various ideas and genres that I am not sure why it was written like this. No other author would have got away with it. I haven't finished it and I am doing what Martin Amis suggested in the intro - reading it as a 'dipper'. But I don't know whether I will ever finish it.

I don’t know what makes Inside Story a “novel” because it reads like what I’m fairly sure it is: a memoir. Maybe because, at times, Martin Amis adopts novelistic devices like third person perspective or because he was covering himself in relating the numerous conversations from decades past and wasn’t sure if the words he was attributing were accurate - maybe even some of the details about the people were made up? But I’m gonna give Amis the benefit of the doubt and treat this as nonfiction with a nominally stylistic veneer of fiction, ie. belonging to the genre of Truman Capote’s Nonfiction Novel.

Another giveaway is that Inside Story is a lot more jumbled and unfocused than any of his other novels I’ve read. It’s mostly about Amis’ memories of his literary father, the Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow; his actual authorial father Kingsley Amis’ friend, the poet Philip Larkin; his close friend, the essayist Christopher Hitchens; and his not-famous ex-girlfriend Phoebe Phelps. But there are a lot of tangents along the way: thoughts on suicidal ideation; the history of the novel; the state of Israel; a loving eulogy to his stepmother, the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard; 9/11; numerous tips on how to write; and myriad thoughts on writers in general.

Your enjoyment of the book will largely depend on how much you want to hear about Bellow, Larkin, Hitchens and Phelps. For me, I was there for Hitchens and Amis made me intrigued in Phelps, though Amis is a good enough storyteller to make Bellow and Larkin not uninteresting to read about at times. And his musings on the various other topics mentioned above weren’t boring either.

That said, there wasn’t much compelling about the Bellow sections until the end, when Bellow succumbed to Alzheimer’s, and even that was similar to anyone else dying of that terrible disease: tragically sad. Larkin too was another writer whose life wasn’t that exciting and felt slightly depressing to read about. I was surprised to find out that Larkin’s dad was a huge fan of the Third Reich though!

I’ve never been a fan of poetry but Amis clearly is and he quotes poems effusively throughout. Fine, but it didn’t make me appreciate the medium any more and I thought they didn’t illustrate his points any clearer (I find they rarely do). Amis also overdoses on footnotes - holy fucking christ, there are extensive footnotes in this book! I don’t mind the occasional footnote but there are too many here. Also, if you’ve read any guides on writing, Amis’ thoughts on writing aren’t going to blow your mind - besides gaining some insight into how he does it/his stylistic preferences, there’s not a lot of practical advice here that you won’t find in any how to write book (though I appreciate this isn’t the point of this book).

As a fan of Hitchens’ it was illuminating to read about Amis’ long-standing friendship with him, from their magazine days in the ‘70s to the very end in 2012 when Hitch died of oesophageal cancer (which Larkin also died of). Amis brings Hitch to life vividly and his words sounded exactly like his voice (if you’ve read his essays or seen any footage of him, you’ll know what I mean). The conversations were always witty, thoughtful and enjoyable to read. I didn’t realise Hitch had gay tendencies when he was younger but it’s not that unbelievable either.

Phoebe Phelps was an engaging character. Amis writes her very personably and she led an eventful life. She ties into some stuff involving his parents and Larkin but the supposed revelation was never convincing. Still, despite not being as famous as Bellow or Larkin, she was more fun to read about than either, and she obviously made a big impression on Little Keith (Hitch’s nickname for Amis) so it’s not hard to see why he’d include her in a book about this period of his life.

Inside Story is full of anecdotes on Bellow, Larkin and Hitchens, as well as Amis himself, and if those are writers you’re interested in, this one’s for you; if you’re not, you’re probably not going to get much out of this one. I thought the Hitchens/Phelps parts were more fascinating than not, the Bellow/Larkin stuff more boring than not, and the rest of it was a mix of both. I’m not sure this needed to be as long as 560 pages and the footnotes took the piss but, while not a must-read for most, this wasn’t a bad novel/memoir either.

It is difficult to categorise this book. Is it a novel, an autobiography or faction? Parts of it, I know, really happened, and many of the characters are (or were) actual people, with or without a pseudonym.
In my opinion, this isn't the type of book to read straight off. I have enjoyed dipping into it, chapter by chapter, over a month or so. There is a confusing number of opinionated characters, including the author. Both the chronology and subject-matter seemed erratic, but that probably says more about me than it does about the book. The language and flow of words are glorious and I do hope that this is not really to be the author's last full-length book.
With many thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for giving me a copy of the book in exchange for this review.

Best read in short bursts, as suggested by the author, this is an accumulation of various encounters and interactions with well-known figures from recent history. Well observed and often very amusing it describes a world I have no experience of.

This is a difficult book to review because I found it a frustrating read, although the occasional flash of brilliance kept me going. It is pretentious and self-indulgent and far, far too long: yet another book that could have done with some well-considered editing.

I found the footnotes deeply irritating. Early in my academic career I was given some good advice about writing: think carefully about your objective in using footnotes, should their content really be included in the main text? If not, why not? Amis uses them as conversational digressions which I suppose suits the structure of the book but makes for an even more disjointed reading experience than the rambling main text already enforces on the reader.

But when Amis writes well he can be insightful, intellectually provocative and highly amusing, although he can also be unbearably condescending to his readers. I ended up with a list of books and authors I felt prompted to explore further, which, for me, is usually a sign of a good read. But I also felt somewhat battered and deeply glad that I wouldn't have to spend any more time in his company.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

In his heyday, Martin Amis was hailed as a rockstar-ish literary figure, possibly because of a fleeting similarity to (a shorter, blond) Jagger, a studied insouciance, and the then audacious themes of his novels. Unfairly, his ability to write unforgettable prose was not always emphasised. Whatever readers think about ‘Inside Story’, his latest memoir billed as a novel, it’s difficult to ignore the many wonderful passages even if the overall work, perhaps in tongue-in-cheek homage to his mentor Saul Bellow, is too long.
For example, on a lecture tour with the latter, Amis describes Jerusalem as, ‘…from tomb to tabernacle, from shrine to icon, from cave to chasm, (each consecrated to a different monotheism – so it’s hats off here and shoes on there, and hats on here and shoes off there), you gradually absorb the fact that you are wandering on the graveyard of at least twenty civilisations…’. An extraordinary description of the city: immediate, thought-provoking, amusing, serious - all at once.
There’s also a good deal of literary gossip to be enjoyed if one is interested in the lives of Bellow, Larkin and Amis senior et al. If not, readers are likely to find ruminations about these luminaries running on somewhat. Throughout the whole “novel” (difficult not to put that noun in quotation marks here) is a celebration of Amis’ enduring friendship with Christopher Hitchens, whose obituary in the New York Times’ described him as a ‘slashing polemicist’. About death, Amis writes movingly and from the perspective of someone nearing old age himself. He makes real the grief, confusion and regret felt at times when those we love have died.
But … Amis continues to present us, tediously, with a perennially adolescent view of women. The physical and the sexual take centre stage; his wives and girlfriends are seen only in terms of how they do or do not satisfy, intrigue or complement him. Such arrogance is mightily off-putting if read as a memoir.
Amis warns his readers early on that, ‘Ideally …’Inside Story’ [should] be read in fitful bursts, with plenty of skipping and postponing and doubling back – and of course frequent breaks and breathers.’ Amen to that – used in the strictly secular sense, of course, as understood by the writer as God of a privileged, particular world.
My thanks to NetGalley and Vintage, Jonathan Cape for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Very interesting book from a master of the craft. There seems to be a growing trend of auto-fiction - memoir meets novel - and it's particularly evident in high-literary figures. It is no less affecting for that.

I struggled with this one. I studied two of Amis' texts at Uni and when I saw the chance for an advanced copy of his latest book I jumped for it. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. Having only read 2 of his novels, I feel like I just don't know his prose well enough to fall in love. Many of the reviews I have come across have been glowing reports; for me however, the tell-all book fell flat.

Time means absolutely nothing in this book or names or narration. We jump around in time in a way that is thoroughly disorientating, people's names change intermittently and for a period Amis refers to himself in 3rd person before returning to 1st. This style of writing is entirely new to me and as someone who has very little experience with Amis I felt a little lost at sea.

By the time I reached the half-way point I had eased into it more. The final third of the book was much more engaging and emotional. His accounts of dealing with so much loss were very raw and honest and seemed to be one of the few points in the novel where I felt I was truly seeing the real Martin Amis. His insights into writing were also fascinating and as an aspiring author (aren't we all) I found these section particularly useful.

All in all, I'd say this book has an intended audience and I wasn't it. I feel like Inside Story requires a reader who is familiar with Amis, both in literature and in his life, so that this novel's enlightening anecdotes have an impact. Towards the end of the novel, as I got more of a sense of Amis' character and his circle of friends and family, I was certainly invested and got much more pleasure from his writing.

Thank you to NetGalley, Vintage and Martin Amis for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review. Inside Story is available now.

It's a shock to think Martin Amis is in his seventies now. Though his writing always had the heft of an author who knows his own power, you cheer for the ruffian underneath, the upsetter, the hatchet-wielder and smasher of conventions. You felt, though, as a reader, that you would always be inadequate to the task of meeting his expectations, and this made it hard to like his work. You were stuck with admiring his clever tricks, and usually hating the way women were treated. I began softening my attitude to his work when I read his autobiography, 'Experience', which was quite a lot more than the genre straitjacket might allow.

Now, with Inside Story, which works into memoir the idea of novel and a sort of guide to reading and writing, there's a comforting welcome to the reader, a glass of whisky, an armchair for you to sink into. There's his family, his wife, his daughters for you to meet. Or a version of them. His sons from his first marriage. A composite of former girlfriends, a certain Phoebe, taunts and half-defeats the youthful Amis, and drives such of the narrative tension he allows. There's a lot of ruminating on his personal literary lions. The Pantheon. He flaunts his friendship with Saul Bellow, pays homage to his father Kingsley Amis, and, from a little further distance, genuflects, as ever, to Vladimir Nabokov. There's a twisty exploration of the power and inadequacies of Philip Larkin, that rides shotgun with the fictional adventures of Phoebe and calls into question the author's paternity. The heart of the book, though, and it's odd even for this to be a feature of an Amis work, (a heart, I mean), is all to do with his fondness and yearning for his old friend Christopher Hitchens. I would re-read the book just to savour the saltiness and the piquancy of that friendship. I've been a fan of The Hitch for years. (That voice!)

Inside Story - a nice play on words, as the book has lots of tips and wise words about the art of writing, story-telling, as well as being comfortable with the idea of creating story out of the author's own life, whether as memoir or as fiction forged from the building blocks of memory.

Amis is a horrific name dropper, and he knows it - but as he points out, his Dad was, well, his Dad, who just happened to be one of the leading writers of the day, and his stepmother, Elizabeth Jane Howard - a fine and, as he admits himself, dreadfully under-rated author. I confess, I got fairly tired with Amis's awe-struck reminiscences about Saul Bellow, an author I've never been able to read without having his amazing talent stick in my throat. I prefer my literary geniuses to give me more space to admire them than Bellow allows. And as he ruminated about Bellow and Nabokov and Larkin and Kingsley, I wondered why he was so very wrapped up with these elderly gents. It seemed he was almost crippled by his need to win approval, and to leap over them at the same time. It seemed a shame for him to care so much about these dusty, elderly old chaps. His urge to take his place in the Pantheon alongside these nicotine-stained, self-assured gents.

And then I realised, listening to the excellent edition of 'Open Book', with Amis being interviewed by Elizabeth Day, he's already become one of them himself.

But not the prose, it's full of pungency and accurate, jolting observations. Things like, "When a novel comes to you, there is a familiar but always surprising sense of calorific infusion; you feel blessed, strengthened, and gorgeously reassured." (My italics). A host of other things to savour.

Thanks to Netgalley and Jonathan Cape for giving me a copy to read pre-publication.

I honestly didn't realise that this was meant to be "not a novel " until I had finished it. It is a very strange mash of genres, part fictionalised memoir, part autobiography , part social history and among other things a guide to writing. Sometimes Amis comes and across as almost unbearably smug but just when I was about to throw the book across the room, he says something that makes him forgivable.
At his best, he writes with moving sincerity about his love and loyalty for his friends, and his grief at their deaths. At his worst, he or the writer, comes across as utterly self absorbed.
No matter how infuriating at times, it is compelling reading. I read a description of Amis as "The Mick Jagger of the literary world" which made me laugh, but also made me wonder if either would be so feted as creatures of cool if they were plumbers from Purley ?
Maybe Jagger but I'm not sure about Martin Amis.
Worth a read especially as he says it will be his last book, which I don't entirely believe.

Presumably it was believed that the author’s name would sell this book. It certainly wasn’t for its uninteresting content or comment. It rambles, wanders endlessly and has extended footnotes. At one point, Amis comments about a book that the author probably had not read it. That might apply here too. I found it impossible to stay with.

It's the first Martin Amis' book I read and I don't think it's the best one as it's part memoir and part novel.
I was a bit confused at times but I loved the style of writing and loved when he talks about writing.
I loved the style of writing and I am sure I will read other books by this author and the go back to this one.
I loved and hated at the same time but I recommend it because it was worth the effort.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Inside Story, Martin Amis’s latest autobiographical novel*, is brilliant at times.

It’s well written and a sombre ennui pervades his entries on late father-figure Saul Bellow and now-departed best friend Christopher Hitchens. I particularly enjoyed the 'how to write' sections. They somewhat reminded me of George Orwell's Politics and the English Language (a massive plus in my view) in terms of the precision of the analysis of language.

Other times, the novel* falters with frustratingly smug and self-indulgent meanderings.

Such is the nature of autofiction, I suppose.

*It's not really a novel, despite Amis's insistence. It's a memoir with details filled in, and a few (very interesting!) meandering thoughts on certain topics.

Read the full review on talesfromabsurdia.com

I have enjoyed a number of Martin Amis's novels and nonfiction, despite their pretensions. I have never read anything as self-regarding and puffed-up and indulgent as this book. It stinks of white privilege.
Men are heroes to Amis and women are things. He worships the unpleasant Christopher Hitchens. When Amis talks about himself as an emeritus parent it makes him look rather bad. Why boast about being a bad father?

This is a hard book to review because it is many books which I suppose is the point. Half autobiography/half novel it deals with (amongst other things)
- anti-semitism
- love, particularly the love of friends, in this case Christopher Hitchins, Amis's great friend
- grief - explored in many forms but particularly for the death of Hitchins
- death - there are many deaths - his sister, his father, his step-mother, Saul Bellow, Philip Larkin as well as 'the Hitch'.
- a love story - this is apparently completely fictional but is one of the most readable parts for me.
- literary criticism (of Owen, Larkin and others)
- how to write
- being short
The list could go on. Overall - too long, but definitely worth a read. The man can write that's for sure.

This book, in my opinion, is at its best and most inspiring when talking about art and craft of writing. On this subject Amis is, articulate, humane and surprisingly modest. He talks about his utter dedication to the craft and also his mistakes- one harrowing tale when a book he’d worked on for over twenty months turns out, on first reading not to have worked.
On friendship (at times bordering on hero worship), he’s both funny and touching. His love of Saul Bellow and Christopher Hitchens reveal the depths of his heart. He’s a true friend to both during their dementia and cancer.
On women however he’s less sympathetic. He’s astounded (and delighted) that one of his long standing girls worked as an escort and keeps returning to this fact. He admits to liking his first wife but doesn’t give her many memorable attributes (her laugh maybe). He’s desperately proud of his second wife’s beauty but sees her through other peoples’ eyes rather than as a writer in her own right.
The book is marketed as a novel but there’s nothing fictional apart from the names of (some) ex girlfriends and his children. Not sure why the publishers have done this.
Amis rarely writes a dull sentence. He reads prodigiously, quotes liberally and can be extremely funny.
I would recommend this but prepare to be irritated at times and thrilled at others.

Originally, the only feeling I was left with, having read Amis' 'Inside Story' was comparable to having been convinced to buy 'magic floor wipes' by a door-to-door salesman. I mean, I've got the goods in my hands, right? But...but... ??? I see that others consider this latest work to be self-indulgent, which, yes, is understandable. It's also irritating. Its insistence (both implied and stated) that it isn't a novel/is a novel/isn't a memoir/is a memoir is IRRITATING. Amis, it seems, is hell-bent on not fitting into any category, which is fine, yes, but the footnotes are annoying, and unnecessary, and make the whole text feel like a test of some kind: 'Are you bright enough/tenacious enough to get through all this?' Well, yes, but only because Martin Amis wrote it, and, OK, OK, yes, yes, that man can WRITE, and also name-drop, and, because he says this is his final novel, so... you have to read it, even though it has no plot, which, also apparently, is fine. However, this novel/not novel takes time to process, and what realise now is that this is the 'Inside Story' of not just Amis, and his arrangements with women (irritating), but also the lives of others (Bellow, Larkin, Hitchens), it's the inside story of writing, too, generally. And so, when you think about it, Amis can't help but come across as 'self-indulgent' can he?