Editing Martin Amis (section)

===2000s===
The 2000s were Amis's least productive decade in terms of full-length fiction since starting in the 1970s (two novels in ten years), while his non-fiction work saw a dramatic increase in volume (three published works including a memoir, a hybrid of semi-memoir and amateur political history, and another journalism collection). In 2000, Amis published the memoir ''[[Experience (book)|Experience]]'', largely concerned with the relationship between the author and his father, the novelist Kingsley Amis. Amis describes his reunion with his daughter, Delilah Seale, resulting from an affair in the 1970s, whom he did not see until she was 19. Amis also discusses, at length, the murder of his cousin [[Lucy Partington]] by [[Fred West]] when she was 21.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shaffi |first1=Sarah |title=Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-era-defining-british-novelist-dies-aged-73 |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=20 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521094012/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-era-defining-british-novelist-dies-aged-73 |url-status=live }}</ref> The book was awarded the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for biography.<ref>{{cite web |author1=Edinburgh University |title=Winners of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography |date=25 August 2022 |url=https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/biography |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019065340/https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/biography |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2002, Amis published ''[[Koba the Dread]]'', a devastating history of the crimes of [[Stalin]] and the denial that they received from many writers and academics in the West. The book precipitated a literary controversy for its approach to the material and for its attack on Amis's long-time friend [[Christopher Hitchens]]. Amis accused Hitchens – who was once a committed leftist – of sympathy for Stalin and communism. Although Hitchens wrote a vituperative response to the book in ''[[The Atlantic]]'', his friendship with Amis emerged unchanged: in response to a reporter's question, Amis responded, "We never needed to make up. We had an adult exchange of views, mostly in print, and that was that (or, more exactly, that goes on being that). My friendship with the Hitch has always been perfectly cloudless. It is a love whose month is ever May."<ref>[http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2154795.ece "Martin Amis: You Ask The Questions"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070304044504/http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2154795.ece |date=4 March 2007 }}, ''The Independent'', 15 January 2007.</ref>

In 2003, Amis published ''[[Yellow Dog (novel)|Yellow Dog]]'', his first novel in six years. The book received mixed reviews, with some critics proclaiming the novel a return to form, but its reception was mostly negative.<ref name="TheTimes2023">{{cite news |title=Martin Amis, literary giant, dies aged 73 |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/martin-amis-novelist-dies-aged-73-v37s53dbw |newspaper=[[The Times]]|date=20 May 2023 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521012357/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/martin-amis-novelist-dies-aged-73-v37s53dbw |archive-date=21 May 2023}}</ref> The novelist [[Tibor Fischer]] denounced it: "''Yellow Dog'' isn't bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It's not-knowing-where-to-look bad. I was reading my copy on the Tube and I was terrified someone would look over my shoulder&nbsp;... It's like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating."<ref>{{cite news |first=Tibor |last=Fischer |date=4 August 2003 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html |title=Someone needs to have a word with Amis |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |access-date=2 April 2018 |archive-date=31 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180731000603/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Amis was unrepentant about the novel and its reaction, calling ''Yellow Dog'' "among my best three". He gave his own explanation for the novel's critical failure: "No one wants to read a difficult literary novel or deal with a prose style which reminds them how thick they are. There's a push towards egalitarianism, making writing more chummy and interactive, instead of a higher voice, and that's what I go to literature for."<ref>Muir, Kate (13 September 2003), [https://martinamisweb.com/pre_2006/ydltinterview.htm "Amis needs a drink"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521091434/https://martinamisweb.com/pre_2006/ydltinterview.htm |date=21 May 2023 }}, ''The Times''; via martinamisweb.com.</ref> ''Yellow Dog'' "controversially made the 13-book longlist for the 2003 Booker Prize, despite some scathing reviews", but failed to win the award.<ref>{{cite news |first=Luke |last=Leitch |date=16 September 2003 |url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/article-6732841-booker-snubs-amis-again.do |title=Booker snubs Amis, again |newspaper=Evening Standard |access-date=27 October 2009 |archive-date=6 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606122132/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/article-6732841-booker-snubs-amis-again.do |url-status=dead }}.</ref> Following the harsh reviews afforded to ''Yellow Dog'', Amis relocated from London to the beach resort of [[José Ignacio, Uruguay]], with his family for two years, during which time he worked on his next novel away from the glare and pressures of the London literary scene.<ref>{{cite web |title=Amis and Uruguay |url=https://martinamisweb.com/biography_files/ma_uruguay.doc |website=Martin Amis Web |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521051441/https://martinamisweb.com/biography_files/ma_uruguay.doc |url-status=live }}</ref>

In September 2006, upon his return from Uruguay, Amis published his eleventh novel. ''[[House of Meetings]]'', a short work, continued the author's crusade against the crimes of [[Stalinism]] and also focused some consideration on the state of contemporary post-Soviet Russia. The novel centres on the relationship between two brothers incarcerated in a prototypical Siberian [[gulag]] who, prior to their deportation, had loved the same woman.<ref>{{cite news |title=Culture / New fiction: Martin Amis |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Economist |date=12 October 2006 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521163156/https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |url-status=live }}</ref> ''House of Meetings'' saw some better critical notices than ''Yellow Dog'' had received three years before,<ref>{{cite news |title=Comeback man |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |access-date=23 May 2023 |newspaper=The Economist |date=12 October 2006 |archive-date=24 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230524052510/https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |url-status=live }}</ref> but there were still some reviewers who felt that Amis's fiction work had considerably declined in quality.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Anderson |first1=Sam |title=Amisérable |url=https://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/26545/ |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=[[New York (magazine)|New York]] |date=11 January 2007 |archive-date=23 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523011617/https://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/26545/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Despite the praise for ''House of Meetings'', once again Amis was overlooked for the Booker Prize longlist. According to a piece in ''[[The Independent]]'', the novel "was originally to have been collected alongside two short stories – one, a disturbing account of the life of a body-double in the court of [[Saddam Hussein]]; the other, the imagined final moments of [[Muhammad Atta]], the leader of the [[11 September attacks]] – but late in the process, Amis decided to jettison both from the book."<ref name="independent.co.uk">{{cite news | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/martin-amis-30-things-ive-learned-about-terror-418950.html | work=The Independent | location=London | title=Martin Amis: 30 things I've learned about terror | first=Alex | last=Bilmes | date=8 October 2006 | access-date=12 May 2010 | archive-date=25 June 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100625003607/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/martin-amis-30-things-ive-learned-about-terror-418950.html | url-status=live }}</ref> The same article asserts that Amis had recently abandoned a novella, ''The Unknown Known'' (inspired by a phase used by [[Donald Rumsfeld]]), in which Muslim terrorists unleash a horde of compulsive rapists on [[Greeley, Colorado]].<ref name="independent.co.uk"/>{{refn|group=n|As Amis explains in his essay "The Age of Horrorism" (reprinted in an amended form as "Terror and Boredom" in ''The Second Plane''), he chose the US city of Greeley, Colorado, on account of its connection with [[Sayyid Qutb]] and the development of his jihadist convictions.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Amis |first1=Martin |title=The age of horrorism |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/10/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=10 September 2006 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131544/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/10/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety |url-status=live }}</ref>}} Instead he continued to work on a follow-up full novel that he had started working on in 2003:<ref name="ChatfieldProspect">{{cite journal |first=Tom |last=Chatfield |date=4 May 2009 |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/books-and-literature/52978/martin-amis-will-he-return-to-form |title=Martin Amis: will he return to form? |journal=Prospect |access-date=23 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523015217/https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/books-and-literature/52978/martin-amis-will-he-return-to-form |url-status=dead }}</ref>

{{blockquote|
The novel I'm working on is blindingly autobiographical, but with an Islamic theme. It's called ''A Pregnant Widow'', because at the end of a revolution you don't have a newborn child, you have a pregnant widow. And the pregnant widow in this novel is feminism. Which is still in its second trimester. The child is nowhere in sight yet. And I think it has several more convulsions to undergo before we'll see the child.<ref name="independent.co.uk"/>
}}

The new novel took some considerable time to write: in 2008, Amis made the "terrible decision" to abandon his first version and a much-different ''Pregnant Widow'' was not published until 2010.<ref name=Bilmes2>Bilmes, Alex. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100204023827/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7134959/Martin-Amis-Women-have-got-too-much-power-for-their-own-good.html Martin Amis: 'Women have got too much power for their own good'], ''The Daily Telegraph'', 2 February 2010.</ref> Instead, Amis's last published work of the 2000s was the 2008 journalism collection ''[[The Second Plane]]'', a collection which compiled Amis's many writings on the events of [[9/11]] and the subsequent major events and cultural issues resulting from the [[War on Terror]]. The reception to ''The Second Plane'' was decidedly mixed, with some reviewers finding its tone intelligent and well reasoned, while others believed it to be overly stylised and lacking in authoritative knowledge of key areas under consideration. The most common consensus was that the two short stories included were the weakest point of the collection. The collection sold relatively well but was not well received, particularly in the United States.<ref name="Keulks2011">{{cite book |last1=Keulks |first1=Gavin |editor1-last=Shaffer |editor1-first=Brian W. |title=The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, 3 Volume Set |year=2011 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-9244-6 |pages=13–15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=am1PhEWMqdIC&pg=PA13 |access-date=24 May 2023 |archive-date=24 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230524032428/https://books.google.com/books?id=am1PhEWMqdIC&pg=PA13 |url-status=live }}</ref>