Antonio wants to avoid thinking about his sister–even though he knows he won’t be able to avoid thinking about his sister–because his sister is on the run after allegedly threatening to shoot her neighbors, and has been claiming that Antonio, Obama, the Pentagon, and their mother are all conspiring against her. Nevertheless, Antonio is going to try his best to be as avoidant as possible, because he worries that what’s been happening to his sister might somehow infect his relatively contented, ordered American life, and destabilize the precarious arrangement with his ex-wife that’s allowed him to stay close to his two daughters.

It’s clear that Martin Amis‘ life has been even more wildly captivating as his novels. In his new book, Inside Story, which he calls a “novelized autobiography.” Amis returns to his great influences in his life– to his beloved friend Christopher Hitchens, to his mentor and literary idol, Saul Bellow, and to the great poet, Philip Larkin. And of course to his father, Kingsley Amis. And there are of course the women and sex.