Author:Martin Amis
'Martin Amis at his best... Wonderful... Extravagantly funny’ Guardian
When 'dream husband' Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head-injury, and personality-change. Like a spiritual convert, the familial paragon becomes an anti-husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system - one among many to be found in these pages.
We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the 'yellow' journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; the porno tycoon, Cora Susan; and Royce Traynor, the corpse in the hold of the stricken airliner, apparently determined, even in death, to bring down the plane that carries his spouse. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: his incapacitated wife, Pamela; his Chinese mistress, He Zizhen; his fifteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, the victim of a filmed 'intrusion' which rivets the world - because she is the future Queen of England, and her father, Henry IX, is its King.
'As funny as Dead Babies, as blackly portentous as London Fields and as satirically on-the-nail as Money' Mail on Sunday
Martin Amis at his best... Wonderful... Extravagantly funny
—— GuardianAs clever and convincing as ever
—— Sunday Telegraph[There] are moments of magical vigilance and great emotional delicacy, intimations of a quite different kind of writer that Amis could be, or would be, perhaps, were it not for the demands of his devastating comic gift
—— GuardianMind tinglingly good... He seems to have guessed what you thought about the world, and then expressed it far better than you ever could... Here is a novel to silence the doubters...Amis has found a subject to match the tessellated polish of his style
—— Observer'Lucid... Daring... A blissful antidote to the arrhythmic stylelessness of so much contemporary fiction
—— Time OutHis humour is a welcome change from the prevailing literary pietism
—— New StatesmanHis prose sparkles
—— ScotsmanA consummate stylist...constantly and intensely aware of the language he is using, the medium of his art
—— Daily MailRaucously funny, relentlessly fast-paced, delightfully intricate... A marvelous novel, a powerful book, a work of pain and madness and love...a work of seriousness. A work of beauty
—— Baltimore SunAmis is a force unto himself... There is, quite simply, no one else like him
—— Washington Post Book WorldREVIEWS FOR LA BELLE SAUVAGE: THE BOOK OF DUST VOLUME ONE:
Fans of His Dark Materials will find themselves joyfully immersed in a familiar world . . . meanwhile, awaiting first-time readers is all the pleasure of commencing their own journey into this most captivating of universes at the very beginning of Lyra's story
No one else writes like Pullman . . . entirely worth the 17-year wait
—— Imogen Russell Williams, MetroA rich, imaginative, vividly characterised rite-of-passage tale
—— Nicolette Jones, The Sunday TimesHigh-octane adventure accompanies ingenious plotting
—— The TimesA riotous read from the get-go ... An absolute tonic for our times
—— RTÉ GuideF*cking fantastic. Patrick is a brilliant writer
—— Blindboy Boatclub , via TwitterLovely ... It's very worth reading
—— Dara Ó Briain , via TwitterA wonderful book ... done with a gorgeous twist of humour and great emotional insight ... One of my books of the year
—— Ryan Tubridy , RTÉ Radio 1Exquisite ... One of the funniest writers in Ireland
—— Irish ExaminerImmensely readable, warm, human and very, very funny
—— Irish Daily StarPixies were loud-quiet-loud. Patrick Freyne is funny-sad-funny. I really loved his new book
—— Ed O'Loughlin , via TwitterReaders are sure to find themselves touched by Freyne's writing ... Delightful
—— Journal.ieFreyne's thoroughly entertaining debut is a flash of warmth and wit in the darkness
—— Totally DublinGenuinely moving ... [It] will evoke warmth in anyone who isn't totally sociopathic
—— Hot PressA delightful insight into the mind of the hilarious Patrick Freyne
—— Irish Country MagazineSo honest, so funny, and most importantly, 11/10 for self-deprecation
—— Sarah BreenBrilliant ... An absolute mind hug
—— Niall BreslinFreyne's radar is precision-honed to find the madness within the mundane
—— Sunday IndependentMore moving that I ever expected and somehow funnier than I assumed
—— Emer McLysaght , Irish Times, Best Books of 2020Captivating and moving.
—— Tablet, *Summer Reads of 2021*Moving... Beneath the attention-seeking is a well-loved author who has gone through his cupboards, giving us all that he has.
—— Johanna Thomas-Corr , Sunday TimesA defiant and witty testimony to mortality and a tender remembrance of his friends and literary heroes… I’ve been reading and re-reading it this year
—— Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*Continues in the same superior vein as Restoration… The fusion of such an engrossing character, and the minutiae of another time, remains a marvel
—— Daily TelegraphIn this evocative and beautifully drawn novel of family and loyalty in the face of an uncertain future Tremain continues the story of a wonderfully unique character
—— Hannah Britt , Daily ExpressHugely enjoyable
—— Reader's DigestMerivel’s hapless charm remains intact in this tour de force of literary technique
—— Sunday Telegraph (Seven)A sequel that looks back to the earlier novel without ever quite recapturing its spirit is the perfect form in which to evoke that feeling of having to carry on, and of trying to make yourself have fun even with it eventually begins to hurt
—— Colin Burrow , GuardianA marvelllously rollicking good read, and it is such a pleasure to meet Robert Merivel again. Rose Tremain brings the character to life in a way that makes you want to find out even more about the period. Enormously skilled and deft
—— Good Book Guide