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
Kingsley Amis could barely make it to the taxi." Amis was, however, adamant in his belief that inspiration did not come from a bottle: "Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work." That this was certainly the case is attested to by Amis's highly disciplined approach to writing. For 'many years', Amis imposed a rigorous daily schedule upon himself in which writing and drinking were strictly segregated. Mornings were devoted to writing with a minimum daily output of 500 words. The drinking would only begin around lunchtime when this output had been