Yellow Dog: A novel by the author of Experience and London Fields

This dark, funny and relentlessly paced Martin Amis novel explores contemporary culture through a gallery of unique - and often unlovely - characters.When Xan Meo is assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers both head injury, and a personality change. The familial paragon becomes an anti-husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system - one among many to be found in these pages. Welcome to their inverted worlds: the ‘yellow’ journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; the porno tycoon, Cora Susan; and Royce Traynor, the vengeful corpse determined, even in death, to destroy his spouse."There are moments of pure comedy in Yellow Dog, but much of its humour is aimed at generating discomfort as well as laughter. It is grim stuff in many ways, but Yellow Dog is also a tightly constructed novel, bristling with ideas and allusions, and one that takes up many of the themes that have characterised Amis's previous work. Overall it is a novel in which the flaws are frequently eclipsed by moments of brilliance." - James Ley, The AgeMartin Amis is the author of fourteen novels, two collections of stories and eight works of non-fiction. His novel Time’s Arrow was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for which his subsequent novel Yellow Dog was also longlisted, and his memoir Experience won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2008, The Times named him one of the 50 greatest writers since 1945. Annotation Brilliant, painful, dazzling, and funny as hell, Yellow Dog is Martin AmisĐ#8217; highly anticipated first novel in seven years and a stunning return to the fictional form. When Đ#8220;dream husbandĐ#8221; Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head injury, and personality change. Like a spiritual convert, the familial paragon becomes an anti-husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system -- one among many to be found in these pages. We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the Đ#8220;yellowĐ#8221; journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; and the porno tycoon, Cora Susan. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: his incapacitated wife, Pamela; his Chinese mistress, He Zhezun; his fifteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, the victim of a filmed Đ#8220;intrusionĐ#8221; that rivets the world -- because she is the future Queen of England, and her father, Henry IX, is its King. The connections between these characters provide the pattern and drive of Yellow Dog. If, in the 21st century, the moral reality is changing, then the novel is changing too, whether it likes it or not. Yellow Dog is a model of how the novel, or more particularly the comic novel, can respond to this transformation. But Martin Amis is also concerned here with what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable. Patriarchy, and the entire edifice of masculinity; the enormous category-error of violence, arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream (probably always an illusion, but now a clear delusion) that we can protect our future and our progeny. Meo heard no footsteps; what he heard was the swish, the shingly soft-shoe of the hefted sap. Then the sharp two-finger prod on his shoulder. It wasnĐ#8217;t meant to happen like this. They expected him to turnand he didnĐ#8217;t turn -- he half-turned, then veered and ducked. So the blow intended merely to break his cheekbone or his jawbone was instead received by the cranium, that spacey bulge (in this instance still quite marriageably forested) where so many delicate and important powers are so trustingly encased. He crashed, he crunched to his knees, in obliterating defeat. ... -- from Yellow Dog From the Hardcover edition Annotation Brilliant, painful, dazzling, and funny as hell, Yellow Dog is Martin Amis' highly anticipated first novel in seven years and a stunning return to the fictional form. When "dream husband" Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head injury, and personality change. Like a spiritual convert, the familial paragon becomes an anti-husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system -- one among many to be found in these pages. We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the "yellow" journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; and the porno tycoon, Cora Susan. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: his incapacitated wife, Pamela; his Chinese mistress, He Zhezun; his fifteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, the victim of a filmed "intrusion" that rivets the world -- because she is the future Queen of England, and her father, Henry IX, is its King. The connections between these characters provide the pattern and driveof Yellow Dog. If, in the 21st century, the moral reality is changing, then the novel is changing too, whether it likes it or not. Yellow Dog is a model of how the novel, or more particularly the comic novel, can respond to this transformation. But Martin Amis is also concerned here with what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable. Patriarchy, and the entire edifice of masculinity; the enormous category-error of violence, arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream (probably always an illusion, but now a clear delusion) that we can protect our future and our progeny. "Meo heard no footsteps; what he heard was the swish, theshingly soft-shoe of the hefted sap. Then the sharp two-finger prod on his shoulder. It wasn't meant to happen like this. They expected him to turn and he didn't turn -- he half-turned, then veered and ducked. So the blow intended

Martin Amis's brilliant and controversial new novel, already hailed in the British press as "Dickens with a snarl" and a "great comic extravagance."

After Xan Meo is brutally attacked in the garden of a London pub and suffers a severe head trauma, his wife and daughters find they are living with a stranger-unpredictable, violent, vengeful, lost: "His condition felt like the twenty-first century: it was something you wanted to wake up from."

While it may alarm his family, Xan's new personality is a good match for the city and the age in which he lives. For this is the vicious London of tabloid journalist Clint Smoker, whose daily reports of illicit sex and outrageous scandal are every bit as fake (and artful) as the noose tattooed around his neck. This is a world where the King of England keeps a Chinese mistress in Paris and tries to suppress a video-taped, bathtub "intrusion" of his fifteen- year-old daughter from reaching the internet. A world of hit men, pornographers, tycoons, and displaced royalty. A world where brilliant people perform unspeakable acts and bodyguards provide no protection.

Yellow Dog is Martin Amis at his dazzling best-comic, fierce, gritty, and profound. Amis explores what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable: patriarchy and the entire edifice of masculinity; the violence arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream that we can protect our future and our progeny.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARTIN AMIS's most recent book was Koba the Dread. He lives in London

The New York Times

… the writing is still agile and exact, the hyperbole driven and punishing and the characters -- when he lets them be -- charismatically repulsive. — Walter Kirn

A brilliant, painful, dazzling, and funny as hell novel about a family man who is attacked in a garden and suddenly becomes an anti-husband and anti-father, from'one of the greatest novelists of his generation'(TIME)“Amis is a stone-solid genius...a dazzling star of wit and insight.” —The Wall Street JournalWhen “dream husband” Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head injury, and personality change. He submits to an alien moral system—one among many to be found in these pages. We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the “yellow” journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; and the porno tycoon, Cora Susan. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: his incapacitated wife, Pamela; his Chinese mistress, He Zhezun; his fifteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, the victim of a filmed “intrusion” that rivets the world—because she is the future Queen of England, and her father, Henry IX, is its King. The connections between these characters provide the pattern and drive of Yellow Dog.If, in the 21st century, the moral reality is changing, then the novel is changing too, whether it likes it or not. Yellow Dog is a model of how the novel, or more particularly the comic novel, can respond to this transformation.But Martin Amis is also concerned here with what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable. Patriarchy, and the entire edifice of masculinity; the enormous category-error of violence, arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream (probably always an illusion, but now a clear delusion) that we can protect our future and our progeny. Martin Amis's brilliant and controversial new novel, already hailed in the British press as "Dickens with a snarl" and a "great comic extravagance." After Xan Meo is brutally attacked in the garden of a London pub and suffers a severe head trauma, his wife and daughters find they are living with a stranger - unpredictable, violent, vengeful, lost: "His condition felt like the twenty-first century: it was something you wanted to wake up from." While it may alarm his family, Xan's new personality is a good match for the city and the age in which he lives. For this is the vicious London of tabloid journalist Clint Smoker, whose daily reports of illicit sex and outrageous scandal are every bit as fake (and artful) as the noose tattooed around his neck. This is a world where the King of England keeps a Chinese mistress in Paris and tries to suppress a video-taped, bathtub "intrusion" of his fifteen- year-old daughter from reaching the Internet. A world of hit men, pornographers, tycoons, and displaced royalty. A world where brilliant people perform unspeakable acts and bodyguards provide no protection. Yellow Dog is Martin Amis at his dazzling best - comic, fierce, gritty, and profound. Amis explores what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable: patriarchy and the entire edifice of masculinity; the violence arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream that we can protect our future and our progeny Explores the complex lives of five very different men, including Xan Meo, a one-time familial paragon who suffers a personality change following a brutal assault, and King Henry IX of England, whose life is complicated by his incapacitated wife, his Chinese mistress, and his fifteen-year-old daughter, the victim of a filmed "intrusion" because of her future role as Queen of England. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.