Imprinted Life discussion

Martin Amis's father was Kingsley Amis. A significant part of this memoir is supposed to illuminate the son and father's relationship. There also are a few skeletons in Martin Amis's closet about which he gives his version of the stories. Then, there is the mysterious murder of his cousin which also becomes a part of this memoir. What I also hope to find is Martin Amis's inclusion of other prominent writers.

He opens with a witty play on the commonly accepted idea that everyone has a novel to write.

"Just now,...in 1999, you would probably be obliged to doubt the basic proposition: what everyone has in them, these days, is not a novel but a memoir."

So, here are his memoir and the reasons for writing it.

"Why should I tell the story of my life?

I do it because my father is dead now, and I always knew I would have to commemorate him. He was a writer and I am a writer; it feels like a duty to describe our case--a literary curiosity which is also just another instance of a father and a son. This will involve me in the indulgence of certain bad habits. Namedropping is unavoidably one of them. But I've been indulging that habit, in a way, ever since I first said, 'Dad.'

I do it because I feel the same stirrings that everyone else feels. I want to set the record straight (so much of this is already public), and to speak, for once, without artifice. Though not without formality."

One of the records to clarify is his paternity of Delilah Seale in Part 2 Chapter 1. His divulgence to those who do not already know might read like secrets of the stars.

Between each narrative of recollected happenings, Amis inserts an authentic letter of his. The first comes from his schooldays at Sussex Tutors, Brighton, in 1967, written to his stepmother, novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard.

It is followed by "Rank", a description of his boyish youth (in contrast with the demands of formal education) and of his reading.

The next "Letter from School" tells which writers of fiction and their books are his favorites or his preparation for entrance exams. He passionately read poetry, including Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"