(1989), Martin Amis's sixth novel, remains his most complex and controversial. Like his previous novel,

(1984), it is a long fiction sustained by a plethora of incident and an intense, quirky style; but whereas

was a first-person narrative from a male point-of-view,

is a mixture of first- and third-person narrative in which a female protagonist figures prominently (even though its third-person sections are supposedly by the first-person male narrator-novelist). In terms of genre,

is a hybrid work. It opens with the first-person narrator, Samson Young, offering three generic definitions of the novel we are starting to read: it is “a true story”, “a murder story” and “a love story (I think)” (1). Shortly afterwards, he calls…

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Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "London Fields". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 July 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3907, accessed 27 November 2024.]