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Book Summary and Reviews of Experience by Martin Amis

Experience by Martin Amis

Experience

A Memoir

by Martin Amis

  • Published:
  • Jun 2001, 432 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

One of the most gifted and innovative writers of our time discloses a private life every bit as unique and fascinating as his bestselling novels.

The son of the great comic novelist Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis explores his relationship with this father and writes about the various crises of Kingsley's life. He also examines the life and legacy of his cousin, Lucy Partington, who was abducted and murdered by one of Britain's most notorious serial killers. Experience also deconstructs the changing literary scene, including Amis' portraits of Saul Bellow, Salman Rushdie, Allan Bloom, Philip Larkin, and Robert Graves, among others.

Not since Nabokov's Speak, Memory has such an implausible life been recorded by such an inimitable talent. Profound, witty, and ruthlessly honest, Experience is a literary event.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Fuses humor, intellect and daring with a new gravitas and warmth." —New York Times

"Superb memoir...a moving account of [Amis's] coming of age as an artist and a man." —San Francisco Chronicle

This information about Experience was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Martin Amis Author Biography

Photo: Isabel Fonseca

Martin Amis was the author of fourteen novels, two collections of stories and eight works of non-fiction. His novel Time's Arrow was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for which his subsequent novel Yellow Dog was also longlisted, and his memoir Experience won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2008, The Times named him one of the 50 greatest writers since 1945. Amis died in May 2023.

Link to Martin Amis's Website

Name Pronunciation
Martin Amis: AIM-is

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Read-Alikes

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