Amis: The pose of a master or a master poseur?
By Fiona Russell Powell

Daily Express - Saturday March 25 1995

WE SEE him here, we see him there, we see him almost everywhere ... That’s right, it's been National Martin Amis’s Week - the talented, youngish (45) English author (son of Sir Kings ley LuckyJim" Amis) who recently whipped the literary establishment into a self-righteously indignant tizz over the record 500,000 advance he demanded for his new book, The Information, which will be in the shops on Monday.
The last few days have seen the TV and media in a feeding frenzy, subjecting Amis Jnr to "The Treatment" and lighting over themselves for "The Exclusive Interview'.
Martin has had his own South Bank special with Melvyn Bragg. and anyone who can hold a pen and brag of a close personal friendship with the author has been after him. Alas, if only I could claim to be a total stranger, but I can't. At least I got the interview.
Arriving just after the photographer has left. I notice Martin Amts standing outside in the semi-darkness on his semi-gentrified Victorian balcony, enjoying the remnants of a beautiful W 1 I (Ladbroke Grove. London) sunset. puffing away on one of his ubiquitous roll-ups. (I used to think that was cool, now I would say it's the affectation of a skinflint.) He trots down to let me in.
We go into the small but adequate kitchen - remember, this used to be his workplace before he left his art historian wife Antonia and had to move in here. Mrs Amis has, and no doubt will keep the better house down the road. He makes me the drink he introduced me to, a Bloody Mary, all those years ago when I interviewed him for The Face, when his novel Money was out. Of course- for Amis now, money is in, not that you would know from the style of the room we adjourn to, his combined lounge and study - where he writes his masterpieces -- which I would describe as "Cheapskate Modern'.

My God, but he has changed. Not in appearance: he's still small and pixie-like. with no sign of the extensive and vastly expensive surgery his teeth are currently and famously undergoing.

No, it's in his manner. He oozes arrogance. Not the arrogance of knowing that you're a brilliant wordsmith, but the barely-muted swagger of someone who has just managed to pull off the deal of the century and thinks that the whole world and his brother is lull of envy and secret admiration (don't kid yourself Martin, your book's not that good, it's just that you have managed to find a publishing house that's prepared to shell out the kind of dough needed for the cachet of having your name at the top of its list).

Even the way he talks has changed. Before, he spoke with the languid drawl of the privileged, not unexpected for someone with Kingsley Amis for a father and a mother who went on to become Lady Kilmarnock.
Now his speech is suffused with ennui, as if he really can't be bothered, it's all such a bore. Pretty soon, I find out just how true my impressions were.
He looked at his watch: "You've got 35 minutes and counting." Countdown to what? EastEnders? The end of the world/millennium/ time - subjects he's always banging on about in his novels?

No. After three calls interrupting us in the space of that precious half-an-hour, all becomes clear. It's the countdown to dinner with his new lady love, Isobel Fonseca (pronounced Funseeker, and cruelly characterised as a literary luvvie by the gossipy book world - apparently, Amis is not her first). This is the young woman who will probably be named as co-respondent in his first impending divorce.
The reason I say first, is that I doubt it will be his last, given that his father - his role model - married three times. I have to hand it to Fonseca, she's obviously
just as talented in her way as Martin is in his. He's well under her spell, or is it thumb?
Throughout what I shall laughingly refer to as our "interview", he was twitchy, on edge, leaping up every time a fax failed to get through. I might as well tell you now that she was the first of several subjects he refused to discuss.
The man who's having his cake and eating it by getting the money and the girl is whining about people intruding on his life. How dare they make him out to be the villain of the piece by leaving his wife and two young children? It's none of their business! I have to remind myself that this is the same man who told me that "whereas most writers stop outside the bedroom door, not only do I like to go inside but also to go into the bathroom too, and shine a spotlight on all I see
So we discuss this notorious new book of his, which is about two rival writers - it couldn't be that he's running out of ideas, could it? Its much quoted opening lines are about Martin s brave, Agony Uncle-ish theory that "Cities at night contain men who cry in their sleep and then say nothing".

THOUGH I'm unsure about the crying, it wouldn't surprise me if one of Amis's genuinely closest male friends, now firmly in the "ex" category, fellow author Julian Barnes, has been cursing in his sleep recently and certainly has plenty to say. Amts axed Barnes's wife, Pat Kavanagh, his agent more or less since his career began, in order to ensure he got that famous five hundred grand. Naturally, Martin is remaining tight-lipped on this one: "I've sat d all I'm going to say on that subject."

We move on to another sensitive area. Who is Richard Tull, the failed protagonisl author in his book, based on (obviously Amis, which he admits freely)? And what about Gwyn Barry, Tull's successful rival? Amis likes to claim it's him too, but nobody believes him.
I ask him if it's really Julian Barnes, the author of A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters, as everybody thinks? "Well, Pat (Barne's wife) was the first person to read The Information and she never suggested once that it was Julian." Whoever Gwyn Barry - a phony who writes bland novels - is based on, he has my sympathy.
Next, I attempt to tackle the rather amusing hypocritical paradox that someone who has consistently, and for years, ridiculed America and its "infantile" people, should now be dating an American, have a new American agent and have moved to New York.
At first, he says: "It's hardly worth replying to, is it? When pressed, he insists firmly: "I'm not living there. They ought to cut that out, it's a slander. The newspapers are always saying I've abandoned my children and gone to live in America. I haven't. I live with my children here in London."
He gets annoyed when I ask, so why does everyone think you live there? Why did the Guardian put it in its piece? "That was a joke, I thought
it was quite clear."
Then he admits it was he himself who produced "that self-defeating slander".
We end with Amis reminding me that his wife is a Yank anyway. Surely thus proving him to have been a hypocrite all along. I'm beginning to feel as if I'm dealing with one of his typically schizoid characters.
In fact, it's a good opening to ask why he's beginning to behave like a character in one of his novels, which he is.
Puffing irritatedly on another roll-up, he's incredulous: 'You're not seriously asking me that question? Yes? Well. I'm trot!' Oooh, a sore spot. I think. Amis frowns earnestly to indicate he wants to make an important point: -The thing is, I don't give a bugger what they say about me, but my children might get teased in the playground.
He must have been bullied, too. Does he give them tips? A pain-filled faraway expression crosses his face: "Yes, I was and I do."
Now we advance to the question of that famous advance, supposedly needed to pay for his costly dental work - being done in America, by the way, where orthodontists don't come cheap.
You must have the most famous teeth in England? "Yeah, I know,' he laughs modestly, adding: "And in America, too. They even rang up my dentist –oh” he checks himself, remembering who he's talking to 'I m not going to talk about it any more. It's been done to death. If people want to go on believing it's a Hollywood job, then let 'em.'
He continues: "Teeth are really important, it's where you live..: my mouth has been the scene of great trauma and violence."
What exactly is wrong w i ht them? It's down to bad genes. I've been extraordinarily unlucky (here. It isn t cosmetic and when I told my dentist that they were saying that, he burst out laughing ... It's just something I've been putting off for years. When I sat down in his chair, I said. 'I'm in for a bad time here but so are you'."

Hmm, I think I know how he felt. This is as bad as pulling teeth, too.
Examples: Do you think your brother (Philip) is as good an artist as you are a writer? "I'm not going to talk about that."
Softening him up: Is Isobel as beautiful as they say she is? "I'm not going to talk about her either." The advance: Is it worth it? "The question is, is the book worth £15.99? That's all the reader has to worry about." Why do you still roll your own? "Cos it's the best smoke, the strongest, it's the best sort of hit."

What a strange man Martin Amis is. All thus concern over his teeth but doesn't seem to give a damn about his lungs. If he's not more careful, he'll end up like the Cheshire Cat, with nothing left but a grin.