For the Guardian Tim Adams reviews Martin Amis’s The Pregnant Widow.
Amis starts with a typically arch disclaimer, the suggestion that his tale–like the murder story in London Fields–is another “gift from real life”. “Everything that follows is true,” he drawls, blowing smoke at the reader. “The castle is true. The girls are all true, and the boys are all true. Not even the names have been changed. Why bother? To protect the innocent? There were no innocent…” He has said elsewhere that the novel is “blindingly autobiographical” and, though names obviously have been changed, you half believe him.