Editing Martin Amis (section)

==Early writing==
According to Amis, his father was deeply critical of certain aspects of his work. "I can point out the exact place where he stopped [reading Amis's novel ''Money''] and sent it twirling through the air; that's where the character named Martin Amis comes in." Kingsley complained: "Breaking the rules, buggering about with the reader, drawing attention to himself."<ref name=Stout/>

His first novel ''[[The Rachel Papers (novel)|The Rachel Papers]]'' (1973) – written at [[Lemmons]], the family home in north London – won the [[Somerset Maugham Award]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Somerset Maugham Awards: Past Winners |url=https://www2.societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/somerset-maugham-awards/ |website=Society of Authors |date=8 May 2020 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=13 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413125200/https://www2.societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/somerset-maugham-awards/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Bradford (2011) ''Martin Amis: The Biography'', Little, Brown Book Group, "Before He Left".</ref> It tells the story  of a bright, egotistical teenager and his relationship with the eponymous girlfriend in the year before going to university;<ref name="James2020">{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Andrew |editor1-last=Bradford |editor1-first=Richard |editor2-last=Gonzalez |editor2-first=Madelena |editor3-last=Butler |editor3-first=Stephen |editor4-last=Ward |editor4-first=James |editor5-last=De Ornellas |editor5-first=Kevin |title=The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eSH7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA244 |year=2020 |pages=242–244 |chapter=Martin Amis |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9781119653066 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521235236/https://books.google.com/books?id=eSH7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA244 |url-status=live }}</ref> It has been described as "autobiographical"<ref name="Garner"/><ref name="Brat"/> and was made into an unsuccessful [[The Rachel Papers|1989 film]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rachelpapers.htm |title=The Rachel Papers |work=[[Box Office Mojo]] |access-date=24 September 2013 |archive-date=27 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927142734/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rachelpapers.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[Dead Babies (novel)|Dead Babies]]'' (1975),<ref name="James2020" /> more flippant in tone, chronicles a few days in the lives of some friends who convene in a country house to take drugs.<ref name="McWhorter1977">{{cite journal |last1=McWhorter |first1=Diane |title=An Ugly Joke: "Dead Babies" |journal=The North American Review |year=1977 |volume=262 |issue=1 |page=72 |jstor=25117878 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25117878 |access-date=21 May 2023 |issn=0029-2397 |archive-date=15 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230215041942/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25117878 |url-status=live }}</ref> A number of Amis's writerly characteristics show up here for the first time: mordant black humour, obsession with the [[zeitgeist]], authorial intervention, a character subjected to sadistically humorous misfortunes and humiliations, and a defiant casualness ("my attitude has been, I don't know much about science, but I know what I like"). [[Dead Babies (film)|A film adaptation]] was made in 2000, which ''Guardian'' film critic [[Peter Bradshaw]] described as "boring, embarrassing, nasty and stupid – and not in a good way".<ref name="Bentley2015121">{{cite book |last1=Bentley |first1=Nick |title=Martin Amis |year=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-7463-1178-3 |page=121 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA121 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521174516/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA121 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=Review: Dead Babies |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/26/martinamis.film |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=26 January 2001 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130529/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/26/martinamis.film |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[Success (novel)|Success]]'' (1977) told the story of two foster-brothers, Gregory Riding and Terry Service, and their rising and falling fortunes. This was the first example of Amis's fondness for symbolically "pairing" characters in his novels, which has been a recurrent feature in his fiction since (Martin Amis and Martina Twain in ''Money'', Richard Tull and Gwyn Barry in ''The Information'', and Jennifer Rockwell and Mike Hoolihan in ''Night Train'').<ref>{{cite news |last1=Walter |first1=Natasha |title=If you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them – in a Martin Amis novel |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/sep/11/fiction.martinamis |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=11 September 1997 |quote=[In ''Night Train''] we have the usual Amis pairing of an ugly, unlucky protagonist set against a beautiful, lucky one; the same pairing that we see in ''Success'' or ''The Information''. |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131036/https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/sep/11/fiction.martinamis |url-status=live }}</ref> During this period, because producer [[Stanley Donen]] detected an affinity between his story and the "debauched and nihilistic nature" of ''Dead Babies'',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Moss |first1=Gregory |title=Something Is Wrong on Saturn 3 – Making Of Saturn 3 |url=https://saturn3makingof.com/ |website=saturn3makingof.com |access-date=23 May 2023 |date=24 October 2012 |archive-date=23 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523025146/https://saturn3makingof.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Amis was invited to work on the screenplay for the science-fiction film ''[[Saturn&nbsp;3]]'' (1980).<ref name="ESF">{{cite web |last1=Clute |first1=John |title=Amis, Martin |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/amis_martin |website=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |publisher=London: SFE Ltd and Reading: Ansible Editions |date=22 May 2023 |access-date=22 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521064810/https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/amis_martin |url-status=live }}</ref> The film was far from a critical success,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=Reviews: Saturn 3 |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saturn-3-1980 |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=19 February 1980 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522190543/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saturn-3-1980 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="razzie">{{Cite web|url=http://www.razzies.com/forum/1980-razzie-nominees-winners_topic330.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121206081210/http://www.razzies.com/forum/1980-razzie-nominees-winners_topic330.html|url-status=dead|title=Golden Raspberry Awards 1980)|archivedate=6 December 2012}}</ref> but Amis was able to draw on the experience for his fifth novel, ''Money'', published in 1984.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=The BBC's Money adaptation plots a course to Saturn 3 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2010/may/05/money-martin-amis-saturn-3 |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=5 May 2010 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131037/https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2010/may/05/money-martin-amis-saturn-3 |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[Other People (novel)|Other People: A Mystery Story]]'' (1981) – the title is a reference to Sartre's ''[[Huis Clos]]'' – is about a young woman coming out of a coma. It was a transitional novel in that it was the first of Amis's to show authorial intervention in the [[Narrative mode|narrative voice]], and highly artificed language in the heroine's descriptions of everyday objects, which was said to be influenced by his contemporary [[Craig Raine]]'s [[Martian poetry|"Martian" school of poetry]].<ref name="ESF"/> It was also the first novel Amis published after committing to being a full-time writer in 1980.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Turner |first1=Jenny |title=The Amis Papers |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/books/the-amis-papers.html |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=3 December 2001 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521171509/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/books/the-amis-papers.html |url-status=live }}</ref>