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Martin Amis’ new autobiographical novel ‘Inside Story’ will be his ‘most intimate and epic work to date’

The new book will explore the author's 'extraordinary life, as a man and a writer'.

Martin Amis Inside Story

He is one of Britain’s most outspoken and influential writers, and now Martin Amis is set to publish an autobiographical novel.

Publisher Jonathan Cape described Inside Story as Amis’ most 'intimate and epic work to date … an unseen portrait of Amis’ extraordinary life, as a man and a writer.'

Inspired by the death of Amis’ close friend, the legendary author and rhetorician Christopher Hitchens, who died of cancer in 2011, the publisher says the book – his 15th novel – will begin with a thrilling tale of romantic entanglements, family and friendship before evolving into a tender, witty exploration of the hardest questions: how to live, how to grieve, and how to die?

In his search for answers, Amis digs into many of the great horrors of the twentieth century and the still unfolding impact of the 9/11 attacks on the twenty-first, while exploring what it has all taught him about how to be a writer.

Readers can expect a cast of colourful characters who have helped define Amis, from his father Kingsley, to his hero Saul Bellow, Philip Larkin, Iris Murdoch and Elizabeth Jane Howard, not to mention the person who, he says, captivated his twenties – the alluringly amoral Phoebe Phelps.

'This extraordinary novel gives the reader the heart-to-heart testimony of one of our finest writers – a wonder of literary invention and a boisterous modern classic,' said Jonathan Cape Publishing Director Michal Shavit. 'We are incredibly proud to be publishing this book of a lifetime.'

The news comes six years after Amis’ last novel, The Zone of Interest, a black comedy about love, death and 'the banality of evil', set amid the grinding gears of Nazi Germany’s Final Solution.'

The Inside Story, on the other hand, is described as a 'love letter to life that is at once exuberant, meditative, heart-breaking and ebullient.'

Inside Story will be published by Jonathan Cape in September 2020.

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