Martin Amis - Dead Babies

Nasty pointless lives snuffed out. Similar in theme to London Fields. This time the characters are a mix of upper class twits, American ex-hippie freaks, a dwarf, and a street-urchin-turned Lothario.

They spend the weekend in a 'country house' outside of London to experiment with drugs and sex and booze and have a good time. Things turn from rotten to rottenest to death.

Martin is apparently a master at flawed characters. All of the characters have serious flaws and the mix of these rotten characters over the weekend turns into surreal ugliness.

With an ugly ending, this story is disturbing and unsatisfying.

I've got to read something light to get Dead Babies out of my mind. The tone is of sad, inevitable death and dissolution among all these characters. With no redeeming acts (except perhaps for the dwarf) to give any hope in this story, one must have a strong constitution not to be affected by this book.

I had hoped that there would be some humour in his books, but it is all far too dark.