 First edition (US) | |
| Author | Martin Amis |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape (UK) Viking Press (US) |
Publication date | 1981 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback, Paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-224-01766-4 |
| OCLC | 7395704 |
| 823/.914 19 | |
| LC Class | PR6051.M5 O8 1981b |
| Preceded by | Success |
| Followed by | Money |
Other People is a novel by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1981.
Mary, an amnesiac young woman, wakes in a hospital and cannot remember who she is, what has happened to her, or even simple things such as how to blow her nose or what clouds are. She leaves the hospital and takes the name "Mary Lamb" after overhearing a nursery rhyme. Mary befriends a woman named Sharon, an alcoholic who seems well-meaning to the naïve Mary until she prostitutes her for money. After enduring painful sex, Mary smashes the man's mouth in once he passes out. She flees, coming into contact with a policeman named Prince, who knows about Mary's past.
Mary lives for a while with Sharon's parents, also alcoholics, but eventually she moves into a shelter for "fallen women." She receives a letter from Prince that includes a newspaper clipping concerning her before she lost her memory. Mary learns that her real name is Amy Hide and that her past was quite dark, a fact which causes Mary a great deal of distress. During her stay at the shelter, she gets a job as a waitress in a seedy café. With one exception, all of the male employees sexually harass her, but she does not understand the significance of their actions. The exception is Alan, a meek and highly insecure man who is deeply infatuated with Mary but does nothing to ward off the attentions of others. Mary meets Prince again, and she learns that Amy had asked someone to kill her. According to Prince, the failed killing was what had caused her amnesia. The man who did it is behind bars but due to be released.
When Alan and another co-worker, the cocksure but illiterate Russ, find out where Mary lives, they are appalled and ask her to join them at their squat. Alan appears tortured by her presence and by the continued kisses and fondling she receives from other men, particularly Russ. To comfort him, Mary begins sleeping with Alan. This does not seem pleasant for either of them, and after a while Mary decides to break their relationship off. In response, Alan hangs himself.
Mary goes to see a man named Michael, whom she finds out she had dated before she lost her memory. Pretending to be Amy's cousin, she asks Michael about the things that Amy did to him. Amy, according to him, was abusive, vindictive, and unfaithful. She is escorted out of Michael's office by his assistant, Jamie, who takes pity on the shabby-looking Mary and invites her to live with him. Jamie is extremely wealthy, and he squanders his wealth largely on drugs and alcohol. Mary becomes infatuated with Jamie and is crushed when he does not return her affection. The two eventually begin a sexual relationship, but it is clear that Jamie does not return Mary's love.
After their relationship ends, Mary moves in with Prince and begins going by Amy. They slowly develop a relationship, one that is deeper than any other that Amy has experienced in the course of the novel. One night, Prince informs Amy that her would-be killer has been released, and that she must confront him. It is never directly revealed who the killer is, although it is implied to be Prince. The confrontation scene ends ambiguously—it is unclear if Mary is finally killed. The next scene recalls the opening lines of the novel, but it is not certain whether this is a recapitulation, an event that happened in Mary's past, or what occurred after the confrontation scene.
The book starts as a comedy, slips into a thriller, and ends a horror story.
Amis saw the novel as a kind of overall investigation. "Mary (the main character) doesn't know what her role is," Amis explained in 1981. [1] "Because of this, men start questioning their own attitudes towards women, and even about themselves. When one's role is undermined, you begin to look at everything around you in a different light."
Though narrated in the third person, the book's descriptions seem to come from Mary's point of view; because the world around her is completely alien, the descriptions are often bizarre, childlike, and (particularly in the very beginning) somewhat difficult to understand. This can sometimes make for poignant tragic irony—it is often clear to the readers, but not to Mary, that other characters do not mean well. This is true, for example, of the scene where Sharon prostitutes Mary for money, or of the repeated scenes of sexual harassment that Mary endures at the café where she works.
The book was well received in Britain and the United States. The writer J. G. Ballard called Other People "Powerful and electrifying... 'Other People' is a metaphysical thriller, Kafka reshot in the style of Psycho ." Writing in The Guardian , poet, writer and critic Anthony Thwaite spoke the novel's "enormous confidence of address," continuing, "Other People is 'about' a descent into Hell, Hell being 'other people'-- it's a very strange and impressive performance." [2] The Times found "For all its savagery... Other People is a funny book... an achievement light years ahead of his earlier novels." [3] Judy Dempsey wrote in The Irish Times , "Amis has done something important in 'Other People.'" [4] In the Los Angeles Times , Charles Champlin called Amis "an English literary celebrity who, like Norman Mailer and Truman Capote here, finds himself in the columns more often than some film stars," and found the book, "an ingenious and mischievous piece of writing, nothing like a mystery with a tidy ending...a tour de force." [5]
Other People is the first book Amis completed after choosing to become a full-time fiction-writer; he had been on-staff at the New Statesman until 1979. Amis told an interviewer "I wanted to leave to devote myself to full-time writing. It was the responsibility of doing something else, not wholly connected with my writing that exhausted me from writing what I wanted. I enjoyed it, but I felt writing was more important." [6]
{{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
Judith Blume is an American writer of children's, young adult, and adult fiction. Blume began writing in 1959 and has published more than 25 novels. Among her best-known works are Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974). Blume's books have significantly contributed to children's and young adult literature. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
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).
Sharon Marie Tate Polanski was an American actress and model. During the 1960s, she appeared in advertisements and small television roles before appearing in films as well as working as a model. After receiving positive reviews for her comedic and dramatic acting performances, Tate was hailed as one of Hollywood's most promising newcomers.
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.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1981.
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.
Time's Arrow: or The Nature of the Offence (1991) is a novel by Martin Amis. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1991. It is notable partly because the events occur in a reverse chronology, with time passing in reverse and the main character becoming younger and younger during the novel.
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.
Night Train (1997) is a comedic parody of American detective novels by the author Martin Amis, named after the song "Night Train", which features twice in the novel.
Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. She is currently Professor/Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at the University at Albany and teaches at the School of Visual Arts' Art Criticism and Writing MFA Program. Tillman is the author of six novels, five collections of short stories, two collection of essays, and two other nonfiction books. She writes a bi-monthly column "In These Intemperate Times" for Frieze Art Magazine.
Marijane Agnes Meaker was an American writer who, along with Tereska Torres, was credited with launching the lesbian pulp fiction genre, the only accessible novels on that theme in the 1950s.
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".
Couples is a 1968 novel by American author John Updike.
The Comfort of Strangers is a 1981 novel by British writer Ian McEwan. It is his second novel, and is set in an unnamed city. Harold Pinter adapted it as a screenplay for a film directed by Paul Schrader in 1990, which starred Rupert Everett, Christopher Walken, Helen Mirren and Natasha Richardson. The film is set in Venice.
Carolyn Coman is an American writer best known for children's books. Her novels What Jamie Saw (1995) and Many Stones (2000) were among the runners-up for major annual awards by the American Library Association (ALA) and the National Book Foundation.
Amy Holden Jones is an American screenwriter and film director best known for directing Slumber Party Massacre and for creating the FOX medical drama The Resident. She has edited various films and later began directing and writing. She currently works in television.
Success is Martin Amis's third novel, published in 1978 by Jonathan Cape.
Isabel Fonseca, Lady Amis is an American writer. She is best known for her books Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey and Attachment. She was married to novelist Sir Martin Amis until his death in May 2023.
Revival is a novel by American writer Stephen King, published on November 11, 2014, by Scribner.
Disenchanted is a 2022 American live-action/animated musical fantasy comedy film directed by Adam Shankman and written by Brigitte Hales, based on a story conceived by Richard LaGravenese and the writing team of J. David Stem and David N. Weiss. Co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures, Josephson Entertainment, and Right Coast Productions, it is the sequel to the 2007 film Enchanted.
