London Fields (novel)

London Fields is a black comic novel by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1986.

Related Topics:
Novel - Martin Amis

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Regarded by Amis's readership as possibly his strongest novel, the tone gradually shifts from high comedy, interspersed with deep personal introspections and occasional musings on astrophysics, to a dark sense of foreboding and, eventually, panic as the deadline or "horrorday" — the climactic scene alluded to on the very first page — approaches.

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Amis explains the title of the novel in his preface, although somewhat obscurely. London Fields is a park in Hackney, north-east London, but the novel is set in west London, like most of Amis' work. The narrator, Samson Young, who is suffering from cancer, tells us he played in London Fields as a boy, and wants to return there, but he never actually does. It is not clear whether his presence in London was originally based on a wish to revisit old haunts, but this seems likely.

Related Topics:
London Fields - Hackney - London - Cancer

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The park in which Young walks with various characters — Nicola Six, Guy Clinch and Kim Talent — is almost certainly not London Fields, since Hyde Park would be more convenient, and he states that he "never will" go back to the park of the title.

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