(1997), Martin Amis's ninth novel, is a slim but richly packed work which combines the police procedural with metafiction and metaphysics. Unusually, Amis, by now firmly stereotyped as a sexist, employs a female first-person narrator, though one whose gender markings are sometimes ambiguous. Her name is Mike Hoolihan and she is an American “police” – a term Amis coins and which the police supposedly use amongst themselves in preference to the terms “policeman” or “policewoman” or “police officer” (1). Mike holds the rank of Detective. She is forty-four, five-foot ten and 180 pounds in weight, “with coarse blonde hair, bruiser's tits and broad shoulders, and pale blue eyes in her head that have seen everything” (43). Mike inherited her physique from her…
3900 words
Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Night Train". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 November 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3297, accessed 27 November 2024.]
