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Old Devils & Personal Demons- EXPERIENCE:A MEMOIR

© Diana Adams

There are very few instances in the history of literature where both father and son are Literary Prizewinners. Both Kingsley Amis, and Martin Amis won the Somerset Maugham Award for their first novels. Also, Kingsley Amis (Martin's father) won the 1986 Booker Prize for The Old Devils, alas Martin Amis was short-listed for the prize in 1991, for Time's Arrow. In attempt analyze and come to terms with the life and influence of his father, Martin Amis wrote Experience: A Memoir.

In Experience, a gathering of memoirs, Martin Amis takes up his pen to settle a score with the English Press, and to deliver the truth about the public perception of his father, one of literatures most rakish old devils, Kingsley Amis.

After all, Martin Amis has good reason to be angry at the English Press, although the book never sounds overtly angry. The press hounded Martin Amis when he underwent dental surgery, there was a huge issue over his half a million dollar advance for The Information, and most importantly, the betrayal of his father in a biographical series in The Sunday Times, by Eric Jacobs.

Make no mistake;Experience is a crafted response to this betrayal. Most importantly, it is a beautiful and artistic testament and an attempt, he tells us 'to set the record straight'. Martin Amis, out of love, answers the call of duty and portrays his father with honour, tenderness, and genius.

Experience reads neither like a memoir nor biography, it moves about time with inverted chronology. The theme of the book, as evidenced by the title, is the passage from innocence to experience, alluding, of course, to William Blake’s 'Songs of Innocence and Experience’ in 1789. Martin Amis explains this change happened very quickly to him in 1994 and 1995.

Several key emotional events during these years are outlined in the text. First, the disappearance of his cousin, Lucy Partington in 1973, who was in 1994 (20 yrs later) found to be a victim of serial killer Frederick West. There is the account of the breakdown of his marriage. Also, during this time he lost a good friend, Julian Barnes, in a personal disagreement. His father died in 1995, and the heart grabbing accounts of Kingsley’s last days in the hospital, told in intimate and private detail.

This is not what we are used to from Martin Amis. In fact, his other books Money and London Fields have both been criticized for a lack of emotion.

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