Success

by Martin Amis

Overview

A modern-day Jacobean revenge comedy that soars with malicious poetry—from “the Mick Jagger of literature [and] the most dazzling prose stylist in post-war British fiction” (The Daily Telegraph).

In Success Amis pens a mismatched pair of foster brothers—one "a quivering condom of neurosis and ineptitude," the other a "bundle of contempt, vanity and stock-response"—in a single London flat. He binds them with ties of class hatred, sexual rivalry, and disappointed love, and throws in a disloyal girlfriend and a spectacularly unstable sister.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679734482
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/03/1991
Series:	Vintage International
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.13(w) x 7.97(h) x 0.52(d)

About the Author

Martin Amis is the best-selling author of several books, including London Fields, Money, The Information, and, most recently, Experience. He lives in London.

Hometown:

Oxford, England

Date of Birth:

August 25, 1949

Place of Birth:

Oxford, England

Education:

B.A., Exeter College, Oxford

What People are Saying About This

Jay Parini

Success. . .might easily have been called Vile Bodies had Waugh not got there before him. . . .The novel's two narrators, Gregory Riding and Terry Service, hate women almost as much as they hate themselves, though it remains unclear where Mr. Amis stands on all this. -- The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

Gregory Riding and Terry Service, foster brothers who loathe each other, are the central characters in Martin Amis's pungent novel, originally published in England in 1978. For Gregory, London is a gilded galaxy, an endless whirl of smart parties, tony art galleries, and easy conquests. Terry's life is altogether more squalid, marred by a history of nagging sexual failures and missed opportunities. Inexplicably, success suddenly smiles on Terry as Gregory plunges to subterranean depths. But it is Gregory's story that most engages the reader's sympathy. In this unusual novel Amis provides a verbal feast for connoisseurs of fine writing; the prose is at times dazzling. But beneath the surface brilliance lies a serious exploration of contemporary life and morals. Highly recommended. Laurence Hull, Cannon Memorial Lib., Concord, N.C.

Library Journal