Martin Amis's life could itself provide the formula for an enthralling work of fiction. Son of one of the most popular and best-loved novelists of the post-War era, he has forged a groundbreaking manner...

Kingsley Amis was a mimic, jester, father, husband, atheist, pseudo-socialist and clubland Tory boozer with a limitless taste for adultery; Philip Larkin a glum misanthrope who lived in self-imposed solitude....

Novelists, poets and playwrights live double lives, sharing the real world with everyone else while spending a good deal of time in a universe of their own making. When they fall out with each other,...