Martin

Martin Amis is the writer and main character of the book. Martin was born in 1949 and is the middle child and son of Kingsley Amis, who is also a famous author. Martin’s younger sister, Myfanwny, has been dead since 2000, when she drank herself to death. Professionally, Martin is a journalist, a biographer of authors, as well as a novelist. In the Preludial, he describes himself as an “almost empty nester” (60), who is morally slothful in that he is a “ridiculously lax and indulgent parent” (xii) of his children who have very little importance to the book. His echelon, Martin describes, is “bookish bohemia” (32). In his early days he does not date women from this niche, but eventually marries a prizewinning journalist and novelist, Elena (whose actual name is Isabel Fonseca).

The reader learns through secondary characterization that Martin is “on the short side” (33) and in his youth...