Martin Amis Amis's work centres on the excesses of late-capitalist Western society, whose perceived absurdity he often satirises through grotesque caricature; he has been portrayed as a master of what "The New York Times" called "the new unpleasantness". Inspired by Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, and James Joyce, as well as by his father Kingsley Amis, Amis himself has gone on to influence many successful British novelists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including Will Self and Zadie Smith. Amis was born in Oxford, England. His father, noted English novelist Sir Kingsley Amis, was the son of a mustard manufacturer's clerk
Rufus Travis Amis of large contracts. The war years were very profitable for Amis Construction and provided the Amis family with the financial basis for future investments. When R.T. Amis, Sr. retired in the 1940s, Rufus became a minority partner with his brother, W.D. (Bill) Amis. The two built roads and dams all over the western United States. After the war, Amis Construction joined with Kerr McGee Oil Company and McKnight Construction to build and operate the Downtown Airpark in Oklahoma City. Their involvement with aviation led to their being approached to finance a start-up to manufacture a twin-engine private airplane. In the