Amis, M: Dead Babies

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.

Blitzed on uppers, downers, blue movies and bellinis, the bacchanalia bent bon-vivants ensconced at Appleseed Rectory for the weekend are reeling in an hallucinatory haze of sex and seduction. But as Friday melts into Saturday and Saturday spirals into Sunday and sobriety sets in, the orgiastic romp descends to disastrous depths.