Lionel Asbo

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.

"Terrific... Both funny and serious, and (as always wth Amis) very very on-the-money'" -- Guardian Richard Ford "This is classic Amis" -- Alan Taylor Sunday Herald "The novel is something of a joy...he makes the dreadful funny, the grotesque poetic" -- Carol Midgley The Times "It's a Big Mac made from filet mignon... It is a book of lovehate. It is a powershake... A book that looks at us, laughs at us, looks at us harder, closer, and laughs at us harder and still more savagely. It is every inch the novel that we all deserve." -- Nicola Barker Observer "The broadest comedy he has ever published... Lionel is a fantastic brute... I laughed a lot. Amis's delight in the incorrigible is genuinely Dickensian... This is a verbally inventive comedy...to be enjoyed in the same spirit as Little Britain... It's a hoot" -- David Sexton Evening Standard