SOURCE: "The Wit and Fury of Martin Amis," in Rolling Stone, No. 578, May 17, 1990, pp. 95-99, 101-02.

In the following interview, Amis discusses his work, literary influences, and techniques, and his reputation as a misogynist, among other topics.

"Look, we're not running this."

That's what Martin Amis said to his London publishers when they showed him a proposed advertisement for his new novel, London Fields. Over a picture of a rancid meat pie crawling with maggots, the ad read: "Today, in London, the average man will think about sex 20 times. One man in three will masturbate. One person will be murdered within three days. A woman will be sexually assaulted every three hours. And five children will die from parental abuse within the week. London Fields … [is] a novel about ordinary, everyday life."

Amis wanted to lose the meat pie.

Long hailed—and heckled—as the enfant terrible of...