Book Summary and Reviews of The Information by Martin Amis

Book Summary

Fame, envy, lust, violence, intrigues literary and criminal—they're all here in The Information, asone of the most gifted and innovative novelists of our time explores the question, How does one writer hurt another writer?

Richard Tull, a frustrated, failed novelist, stews with envy and humiliation at the success of his oldest friend, Gwyn Barry, who is a darling of book buyers, award committees, and TV interviewers. He's a terrible writer, but that doesn't comfort Tull as he sinks deeper into the sub-basement of literary obscurity. The only way out of this predicament, Tull believes, is to plot the demise of Barry—to gather the information that will lead to his downfall. Meanwhile, both men are being watched by a psychopathic ex-con and a young thug, who have staked out their homes, watching their wives and Richard's small twin boys, waiting until the time is right...

Amis is at his savage best in what has been hailed as one of his greatest books, full of wicked humor and exquisitely turned, cutthroat sentences, "never out of reach of a sparkly phrase, stiletto metaphor or drop-dead insight into the human condition," as the critic Christopher Buckley put it. This is a mesmerizing and entertaining novel of midlife crisis and male friendship, of our brutal culture of fame and fortune and too much information.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. The fact that most of the novel's characters, including Richard himself, are described from Richard's rather unbalanced point of view puts into question just how accurately or fairly they are being described. The narrator even breaks in at one point to tell us that "Richard didn't look as bad as he thought he looked. Not yet. If he did, then someone, surely, a woman or a child…would take his hand and lead him to somewhere nice and soft and white…" [p. 44]. If you had to describe the various characters in the book– Richard, Gwyn, Gina, Demi, Anstice, Scozzy, 13– more objectively, how would you do it?
2. Who is actually narrating the book? Is it Martin Amis himself, undisguised, or is it some other person, and ...