My Martin Amis

"Not everyone even remotely has Amis's descriptive ability." Zoe Strimpel

My Martin Amis

Show Notes

Gender scholar, author and columnist Zoe Strimpel tells Jack Aldane about the "sexual sentimental education" she gleaned from Martin Amis’s novels as a young woman battling teenage angst.

In particular, they discuss Amis's first novel, The Rachel Papers, which introduced Zoe to the dark corners of male heterosexuality through Amis's burgeoning comic prose style, and how the book's portrayal of sex compares with the rules of attraction today.

Is the novel's insatiably horny hero Charles Highway now an extinct breed, or is his academic approach to sex a precursor to the modern male propensity to overthink?

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