 | |
| Author | Martin Amis |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | 7 June 2012 |
| ISBN | 978-0-224-09621-8 |
| OCLC | 776772658 |
| 823/.914 21 | |
Lionel Asbo: State of England is a novel by the English author Martin Amis, published in 2012.
| | |
| Author | Martin Amis |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | 7 June 2012 |
| ISBN | 978-0-224-09621-8 |
| OCLC | 776772658 |
| 823/.914 21 | |
Lionel Asbo: State of England is a novel by the English author Martin Amis, published in 2012.
 |
Desmond Pepperdine, a teen resident of the hopeless borough of Diston Town, shares the home of his late mother with his uncle, the implacably yobbish Lionel Asbo. Despite the latter's attempts to educate his nephew according to his crude and malicious principles (including putting dogs on Tabasco sauce diets and preferring porn over real women), Desmond's interests lead him in a completely different direction. He learns how to write properly and how to read something other than a tabloid, and he experiences a sort of Distonite renaissance. He also meets Dawn Sheringham, a kind-hearted and intelligent girl, who becomes his first actual girlfriend. Meanwhile, during one of his casual sentences in prison, Lionel Asbo is informed that he has just won £139,999,999.50 on the National Lottery. He soon joins the disreputable club of British Lotto Louts, laying his hand on every piece of extravagant and boisterous merchandise available, and placing himself in the company of his peers, namely, other redundant celebrities. His immense wealth invokes in him absolutely no sense of charity, even though many in his family are in dire need of financial help. Glamour model and aspiring poet "Threnody" becomes his new girlfriend, at least as long as it serves their mutual interest to become the nation's favourites. All this wouldn't matter much to Desmond, but for a single unfortunate mistake that threatens all his chances of overcoming Diston Town.
Critical reception for the book was mixed, with some reviewers criticising Amis's repeated use of old plot schemes and character types. [1] [2] Novelist Nicola Barker praised the book in The Guardian , describing Lionel Asbo as "a Big Mac made from filet mignon." [3]
Sir Kingsley William Amis was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986).
Edward Morgan Forster was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924).
Sir Martin Louis Amis was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels Money (1984) and London Fields (1989). He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir Experience and was twice listed for the Booker Prize.
William Woodard Self is an English writer, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Self is currently Professor of Modern Thought at Brunel University London, where he teaches psychogeography.
Terence Francis Eagleton is an English literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University.
"Chav", also "charver", "scally" and "roadman" in parts of England, is a British term, usually used in a pejorative way. The term is used to describe an anti-social lower-class youth dressed in sportswear. The use of the word has been described as a form of "social racism". "Chavette" is a related term referring to female chavs, and the adjectives "chavvy", "chavvish", and "chavtastic" are used to describe things associated with chavs, such as fashion, slang, etc. In other countries like Ireland, "Skanger" is used in a similar manner. In Canada, in the province of British Columbia they're known as "Surrey jacks". In Ontario, the term is "hoodman", an equivalent of the term "roadman" used in England. In Newfoundland, "skeet" is used in a similar way, while in Australia, "eshay" or "adlay" is used.
James Douglas Graham Wood is an English literary critic, essayist and novelist.
London Fields is a blackly comic murder mystery novel by the British writer Martin Amis, published in 1989. The tone gradually shifts from high comedy, interspersed with deep personal introspections, to a dark sense of foreboding and eventually panic at the approach of the deadline, or "horror day", the climactic scene alluded to on the very first page.
Stephen Peter Gough, popularly known as the "Naked Rambler", is a British pro-nudity activist and former Royal Marine. In 2003 and 2004, he walked the length of Great Britain naked, but was arrested when he did it again in 2005 and 2006. Since then, he has spent most of the intervening years in prison, having been repeatedly rearrested for contempt of court for public nudity and imprisoned. He has been convicted of public order offences at least 40 times. Gough brought a lawsuit in the European Court for Human Rights, arguing that laws requiring him to wear clothing violated his rights to privacy and free expression. His claim was rejected in 2014.
Money: A Suicide Note is a 1984 novel by Martin Amis. In 2005, Time included the novel in its "100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present". The novel is based on Amis's experience as a script writer on the feature film Saturn 3, a Kirk Douglas vehicle. The novel was dramatised by the BBC in 2010.
The Old Devils is a novel by Kingsley Amis, published in 1986. It won the Booker Prize. Alun Weaver, a writer of modest celebrity, returns to his native Wales with his wife, Rhiannon, sometime girlfriend of Weaver's old acquaintance Peter Thomas. Alun begins associating with a group of former friends, including Peter, all of whom have continued to live locally while he was away. Drinking daily in the pub with the men, he cuckolds most of them.
The Information is a 1995 novel by British writer Martin Amis. The plot involves two forty-year-old novelists, Gwyn Barry (successful) and Richard Tull. Amis has asserted that both characters are based on himself. It is, says Amis, a book about "literary enmity".
Yellow Dog is the title of a 2003 novel by the British writer Martin Amis. Like many of Amis's novels, the book is set in contemporary London. The novel contains several strands that appear to be linked, although a complete resolution of the plot is not immediately apparent. An early working title for the novel, according to an interview Amis gave with The Observer Review in September 2002, was Men in Power. Despite some rather harsh criticism, Yellow Dog made the longlist for the Man Booker Prize in 2003.
The Rachel Papers is Martin Amis's first novel, published in 1973 by Jonathan Cape.
Other People is a novel by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1981.
Ned Beauman is a British novelist, journalist and screenwriter. The author of five novels, he was selected as one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta magazine in 2013.
Hatchet Job of the Year was a British journalism award given annually from 2012 to 2014 to "the writer of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past twelve months". It was awarded by The Omnivore, a review aggregator website, with the aim to "raise the profile of professional critics and to promote integrity and wit in literary journalism". The prize was a year's supply of potted shrimp.
London Fields is a 2018 mystery thriller film directed by Mathew Cullen with a screenplay by Roberta Hanley and Martin Amis, based on the 1989 novel of the same name by Amis. The film stars Billy Bob Thornton as Samson Young, a terminally ill writer who has suffered from writer's block for 20 years. The cast also includes Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess, Theo James, Jason Isaacs, Cara Delevingne, Obi Abili, and Jaimie Alexander.
Brooklyn Joseph Peltz Beckham is an English socialite and former model. He is the eldest son of former footballer David Beckham and fashion designer and former singer, Victoria Beckham.
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a novel by Elizabeth Taylor. Published in 1971, it was her eleventh novel. It was shortlisted for the 1971 Booker Prize. The novel was adapted for television in 1973 and was the basis for a 2005 film, also called Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.