The Rub of Time

November 13, 2017
The essays and journalism in this wide-ranging, rewarding collection take Amis (The Zone of Interest) from a pornographer’s mansion to the U.S. presidential campaign trail and consider the output of such writers as Don DeLillo and Philip Larkin. Over the 23-year period that the essays span, Amis is infallibly a lucid, linguistically precise commentator. Writing about Jane Austen, Saul Bellow, Iris Murdoch, and Vladimir Nabokov, he is admiring but not idolatrous; his coverage of poker tournaments and soccer matches is lively; his judgments on film range from a sympathetic, considered profile of John Travolta (in the wake of the actor’s comeback in Pulp Fiction) to amused horror at Four Weddings and a Funeral: “I was filled with a yearning to be doing something else.” Amis is an inimitable, devoted observer: tennis instructors “flowed toward with leisurely economy”; John Updike, observing fellow patients in a hospital cafeteria, is a “NORAD of data gathering and microinspection.” Occasionally, on politics and art, Amis can be critically uninspired: in an essay on J.G. Ballard, he writes that Steven Spielberg is an “essentially optimistic artist” and that David Cronenberg is “a much darker artist.” But largely, nonfiction Amis is a witty, welcome presence: a practitioner of “burnished technique and... sober delectation.” Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

November 15, 2017
A sharp, witty collection from the prolific writer of fiction, memoir, and acerbic essays.In his latest work of nonfiction, Amis (The Zone of Interest, 2014, etc.) gathers an enticing miscellany of short pieces--reportage, political and cultural commentary, book reviews, and personal reflections--published during the past 30 years, amended with occasional footnotes and postscripts and, writes the author, given "a great deal of polishing." In an affectionate piece on The King's English, his father's last book, on language and usage, Amis quotes a reviewer who admired the "tense, sly quality" of Kingsley Amis's prose. Certainly that slyness and linguistic precision has been inherited by Amis fils, whether he is praising the "invigorating intelligence" of Jane Austen or skewering the bumbling Rick Perry, recalling debonair Saul Bellow or denigrating narcissistic Donald Trump. Describing himself as "pallidly left-of-center," Amis reported on the Republican Party for Newsweek in 2011 and 2012 (calling Romney "an astoundingly proficient technocrat"). In 2016, he weighed in on Trump's ascension for Harper's, deeming his campaign manifesto, Crippled America, "emotionally primitive and intellectually barbaric"; and Trump himself, "insecurity incarnate" and, like the majority of Republicans, "a xenophobe and proud of it." Trump's "idiolect," writes the author, would serve as "an adventure playground for any proscriptive linguist." Among essays on writers, Amis warmly remembers the brilliant, eccentric Iris Murdoch, "the preeminent female English novelist of her generation," and poet Philip Larkin, "more than memorable. He is instantly unforgettable." Amis also offers a tender eulogy for Princess Diana, whose death, he writes, felt "so savage." Diana had a particular talent "for love. She felt that she could inspire it, transmit it, increase its general sum," and she both humanized and, finally, cracked the veneer of the monarchy. John Travolta, Philip Roth, Christopher Hitchens, and Jeremy Corbyn all come under Amis' sharp-eyed gaze. Several essays are disarmingly autobiographical; a few pieces compile brief, and sometimes-snarky, replies to readers' questions.Literate, perspicacious, and thoroughly entertaining.

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February 1, 2018
In his second major essay collection, which dovetails with The War against Cliche: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000 (2001), master novelist Amis refers to Bellow and Nabokov as his Twin Peaks, writers he reveres. When he asserts that Bellow will emerge as the supreme American novelist, he looks, in part, to the verbal surface, to the instrument, to the prose, cuing us to do the same when reading this vital, heady, landmark compendium. Amis writes with buoyant and cutting authority. His vocabulary, cross-pollinated by his trans-Atlantic reading and life, is pinpoint and peppery; his syntax supple and ensnaring. The pleasure Amis takes in observation, cogitation, and composition is palpable, and he is acidly funny. His literary analysis, including of Don DeLillo, the laureate of terror, is commanding and enlightening, while he brings his novelist's sensibility to politics, especially in his unnervingly prescient assessment of Trump's wobbly mental health during the 2016 campaign. In considering Vegas, tennis, Jane Austen films, and personal milestones, Amis writes with agility, spirit, artistry, and a shrewd sense of the deepest implications.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018

In this collection of previously published newspaper and magazine work by novelist, essayist, and critic Amis (The Rachel Papers; Money; London Fields), the author comes across as a close and sensitive reader of literature and culture, his language erudite and complex. A significant portion of this volume features Amis's book reviews and responses to literature, and he returns multiple times to several touchstones, including John Updike, Philip Larkin, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and Vladimir Nabokov. It is a testament to his writing that these pieces remain approachable, even if the works under examination have not all been themselves read. In addition to the literary work, another standout is Amis's popular culture reportage, which shines a bright light on America and celebrity. His profile of John Travolta, efforts to compete in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, and critical reading of President Donald Trump's books The Art of the Deal and Crippled America, published prior to the election, are all especially good. VERDICT Amis is a savvy, biting writer who still manages an engaging, conversational tone. Any reader seeking an introduction to the books he spends time with, or a new perspective on our sometimes chaotic culture, will enjoy this collection. [See Prepub Alert, 8/28/17.]--Doug Diesenhaus, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2017

Smartly acidulous in his nonfiction as in his fiction, celebrated British author Amis (now based in Brooklyn) collects 30 years' worth of essays ranging from Trump and terrorism to the depredations of aging to his greatest literary influences, Bellow and Nabokov. Expect off-the-book-page coverage.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.