READ HIM NOW –
June 10, 2024 – Martin Amis knew how good he was, and meted out his treasures to lucky editors with a certain lofty care. One of my first calls when I got to Vanity Fair was to ask him to write a piece about a new play by David Hare. His first question was: “Do I have to see it?” Martin’s insecurity was reserved for the reception of The Rachel Papers. His letters to me, written in a cramped hand on Times Literary Supplement notepaper, are full of anxiety and dread. “I enclose the enclosed so that you still have some faith in my grubby talents when I am assassinated in the press tomorrow morning.” Or: “Please call Cape and command them to send you the full galley, read it, think it’s good, then send it on to Craig Raine, with strict instructions that I want only hypocritical praise, none of his blunt Northerner crap.”
The novel’s publication, of course, turned him into a wunderkind. But how hard Martin worked. His letters are full of literary toil, reviews, magazine pieces, line-editing of others at his day jobs at the New Statesman and TLS.
