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,...

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...