Heavy Water And Other Stories

Martin Amis was twenty-three when he wrote his first novel, The Rachel Papers (1973). Over the next half century – in fourteen more novels, two collections of short stories, eight works of literary criticism and reportage, and his acclaimed memoir, Experience – he established himself as the most distinctive and influential prose stylist of his generation. To many of his readers, Amis was also the funniest. His intoxicating comedic gifts express a profound understanding of the human experience, particularly its most shocking cruelties, and Amis wrote with pathos and verve on an astonishing range of subjects, from masculinity and movie violence to nuclear weapons and Nazi doctors. His books, which have been translated into thirty-eight languages, provide an indelible portrait and critique of late-capitalist society at the turn of the twenty-first century. He died in 2023.

"Brilliant - a remarkable feat of rhetorical beauty and overwhelming truth... A terrific collection - brilliantly varied, constantly surprising chips of a superb imagination" Mail on Sunday "Amis is immaculate as a comic stylist - irresistible" Daily Telegraph "This volume is essential reading for anyone remotely interested in where we are and how we got here" Sunday Times "Comic inversions, fantastical celebrations and ripe satire - of popular culture, personal relationships, even the space-time continuum - all jostle in these pages... Simply ace" Esquire "Amis applies his comic timing, his perfect pitch and his curatorial eye to some of the burning issues of our time" New York Times Book Review