Yellow Dog

by Amis, Martin

• ISBN13: 9780224050616
• ISBN10: 0224050613
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-04
• Publisher: Gardners Books

Summary

When 'dream husband' Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head- injury, and personality- change. Like a spiritual convert, the familial paragon becomes an anti- husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system- one among many to be found in these pages. We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the 'yellow' journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; the porno tycoon, Cora Susan; and Kent Price, the corpse in the hold of the stricken airliner, apparently determined, even in death, to bring down the plane that carries his spouse. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: his incapacitated wife, Pamela; his Chinese mistress, He Zhezun; his fifteen- year- old daughter, Victoria, the victim of a filmed 'intrusion' which rivets the world- because she is the future Queen of England, and her father, Henry IX, is its King. The connections between these characters provide the pattern and drive of YELLOW DOG. Novelists have noticed that contemporary reality keeps outdoing their imaginations. Yet there is still the obligation to attempt a reading of the present and the very near future. If, in the twenty-first century, the moral reality is changing, then the novel is changing too, whether it likes it or not. YELLOW DOG is an early example of how the novel, or more particularly the comic novel, can respond to this transformation. But Martin Amis is also concerned here with what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable. Patriarchy, and the entire edifice of masculinity; the enormous category- error of violence, arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream (probably always an illusion, but now a clear delusion) that we can protect our future and our progeny.

Author Biography

Martin Amis's most recent book was Koba the Dread. He lives in London

Table of Contents

Renaissance Man	p. 3
Hal Nine	p. 15
Clint Smoker	p. 22
101 Heavy	p. 32
The transfer to Trauma	p. 33
Doing Beryl	p. 40
On the Royal Train	p. 50
101 Heavy	p. 59
The publicity of knowledge	p. 62
The high-IQ moron	p. 69
Excalibur	p. 78
101 Heavy	p. 88
The thing which is called world	p. 89
His Voluminousness	p. 102
Cold Blow Lane	p. 115
101 Heavy	p. 130
In the master bedroom	p. 132
Storm in a teacup	p. 145
Car-sweat	p. 158
101 Heavy	p. 174
The Decembrist	p. 179
Cora Susan	p. 183
Denizen	p. 188
At Ewelme	p. 190
101 Heavy	p. 192
Apologia--1	p. 194
We two	p. 200
Use Your Head	p. 203
Epithalamium	p. 207
We will go quietly	p. 212
Weird sister	p. 217
King Bastard	p. 220
Cora's call on Pearl	p. 223
It's Not Unusual	p. 226
Size zero--1	p. 231
Size zero--2	p. 238
Not knowing again	p. 245
To Otherville	p. 248
101 Heavy	p. 254
The face has holes in it	p. 255
Apologia--2: Keith the Snake	p. 260
Yellow Tongue	p. 266
Cur moment	p. 275
101 Heavy	p. 279
The syrups of the sky	p. 285
Sickout at Dolorosa Drive	p. 290
The principle of lullabies	p. 293
Anger of the just	p. 299
The Sextown Sniper	p. 304
Men in power	p. 306
101 Heavy	p. 309
Clint prepares	p. 310
Waking in the cold	p. 311
Leather on willow	p. 312
101 Heavy	p. 313
What do princesses want?	p. 314
Simon Finger	p. 316
The vestal follow	p. 317
101 Heavy	p. 321
Last Chapter
Courtly love	p. 323
k8	p. 326
The edge of the earth	p. 328
101 Heavy	p. 330
Yellow dog	p. 332
When they were small	p. 338
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