 Cover of first edition (hardcover) | |
| Author | Kingsley Amis |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Comedy novel |
| Publisher | Hutchinson |
Publication date | 1992 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| ISBN | 0091745365 |
The Russian Girl is a 1992 comedy novel by Kingsley Amis published by Hutchinson & Co.
Set in the early nineties the novel describes in comic detail events set in train by the arrival in London of Russian poet Anna Danilova. Richard Vaisey, Anna's sponsor and soon-to-be lover is a middle-aged academic, a professor of Slavonic studies not so happily married to wife Cordelia. Anna's youth and charm is what attracts Richard, not her poetry which he regards as doggerel. Anna attempts to portray her would-be oligarch brother, in legal trouble in Russia, as a dissident in order to elicit support from the London literati. Comedy of course ensues in Cordelia's response to Richard's infatuation and in the interaction of the latter with other minor characters.
The novel was in general very favourably reviewed. The New York Times describing it as '"more of a good wine, vintage Amis: smooth, dry and not overpriced." [1] The Los Angeles Times called it "a wonderful new concert of plot and language that provokes both belly laughs and twinges of discomfort". [2] Kirkus Reviews described it thus: "Vintage Amis — as divisive, compelling, and hilarious as the Bobbitt trial". [3] Publishers Weekly however described the novel as "only fitfully amusing". [4]
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). His biographer Zachary Leader called Amis "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century." He is the father of the novelist Martin Amis. In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.
Martin Louis Amis is a British 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 has been listed for the Booker Prize twice. Amis served as the Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester until 2011. In 2008, The Times named him one of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.
Colonel Sun is a novel by Kingsley Amis published by Jonathan Cape on 28 March 1968 under the pseudonym "Robert Markham". Colonel Sun is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Fleming's 1964 death. Before writing the novel, Amis wrote two other Bond related works, the literary study The James Bond Dossier and the humorous The Book of Bond. Colonel Sun centres on the fictional British Secret Service operative James Bond and his mission to track down the kidnappers of M, his superior at the Secret Service. During the mission he discovers a communist Chinese plot to cause an international incident. Bond, assisted by a Greek spy working for the Russians, finds M on a small Aegean island, rescues him and kills the two main plotters: Colonel Sun Liang-tan and a former Nazi commander, Von Richter.
Blanche McCrary Boyd is an American author whose novels are known for their eccentric characters. She is currently the Roman and Tatiana Weller Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Connecticut College.
Joanna Scott is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Her award-winning fiction is known for its wide-ranging subject matter and its incorporation of historical figures into imagined narratives.
Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya is a Russian writer, novelist and playwright. She began her career writing and putting on plays, which were often censored by the Soviet government, and following perestroika, published a number of well-respected works of prose.
A Good Man in Africa is William Boyd's first novel, published in 1981. It won both the Whitbread Book Award for a first novel and the Somerset Maugham Award that year.
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Malinda Lo is an American writer of young adult novels including Ash, Huntress, Adaptation, Inheritance,A Line in the Dark, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club. She also does research on diversity in young adult literature and publishing.
Allison Pataki is an American author and journalist. Her five historical novels are The Traitor's Wife: The Woman Behind Benedict Arnold and the Plan to Betray America, The Accidental Empress, Sisi, Empress on Her Own, Where the Light Falls, and The Queen's Fortune. Beauty in the Broken Places is her first memoir.
Down by the River is a 1997 novel by Irish novelist Edna O'Brien. The novel depicts the response of a local community the a girl, Mary, abuse by her father being exposed to their local community when she tries to get an abortion. The ensuing legal battle in a country which bans abortions.
The Witch of Exmoor is a 1997 novel by Margaret Drabble. The novel is a social novel, with a focus on exploring the state of post-Thatcher Britain through the Dickensian satire of the Palmer family. The title describes the satirical protagonist, Frieda Palmer, who provides the source of much of the social commentary.
Meredith Russo is an American young adult author from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The Cutthroat is an Isaac Bell adventure tale, the tenth in that series. The hardcover edition was released March 14, 2017. Other editions were released on different dates.
The Anti-Death League is a 1966 novel by English author Kingsley Amis (1922–1995). Set in England, it follows the lives of characters working in and around a fictional British Army camp where a secret weapon is being tested.
Tiffany D. Jackson is a New York Times Bestselling American author of young adult fiction and a horror filmmaker, best known for her NAACP Image Award-nominated debut novel Allegedly.
Silver Wedding is a 1988 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Set in London, Dublin, and the west of Ireland in the year 1985, the novel explores the lives and inner feelings of a couple and their family and friends who are about to celebrate the couple's 25th wedding anniversary.
Anica Mrose Rissi is an American author of children's books and young adult novels. Her first book, Anna, Banana, and the Friendship Split, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2015. Her nonfiction pieces have been published by the New York Times and The Writer magazine.
The Folks That Live on the Hill is Kingsley Amis's 20th novel, first published in 1990.