Richard Tull, a failed and disillusioned novelist, seethes with envy as he watches his longtime friend Gwyn Barry, a talentless, populist charlatan, rise to literary superstardom. Barry is adored by readers, celebrated by critics, and constantly in the public eye, while Tull sinks deeper into middle-aged obscurity, unable to escape the evidence of his own defeat. In a trance of impotent rage, Tull devises a vicious plan to ruin his friend—or at least hurt him as badly as possible—and finds himself tumbling into London’s criminal underworld, as well as the darkest precincts of his own soul.

The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.

In Experience, the celebrated novelist Martin Amis steps away from fiction to deliver a sharply observed memoir, weaving together the personal and the universal in his signature dazzling style. Through a mosaic of vivid memories, Amis reflects on his extraordinary life: his complex relationship with his father, the iconic author Kingsley Amis; the heavily publicized murder of his cousin Lucy Partington by a notorious serial killer; and the relentless absurdities of public life, from tabloid scandals to literary feuds.

Charles Highway, a bright, egotistical Oxford student and soon-to-be Great Novelist, spends the eve of his twentieth birthday reflecting on his adolescence—at times stimulating, often embarrassing, and never nearly as debauched as he’d have liked. Until he meets Rachel Noyes, an elusive, unattainable, manic pixie mystery of a girl whom Charles quickly becomes entranced by. He meticulously draws up battle plans and strategies for how to seduce Rachel, and thus the “Rachel Papers” are born.

Within the quiet walls of the Appleseed Rectory, a gorgeous five-bedroom, three-story home in rural England, anything goes: the drugs are consumed with gusto, the booze flows like water, and the sex is near constant and deliciously debauched. When six uppity twenty-somethings gather at the rectory for a careless weekend away, things quickly go awry. And when someone named Johnny begins leaving threatening letters around the house, the group is thoroughly shaken—no one has any clue who this “Johnny” could be.