Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

FICTION: EILEEN BATTERSBYreviews The Pregnant Widow,by Martin Amis, Cap, 470pp, £13.99

YET AGAIN Martin Amis summons a Keith. But this Keith is not tough, working class, financially emasculated and ready for a punch up. Instead he is a dozy university student, taking on the English novel by reading everything while spending a summer sitting by a pool in Italian luxury. He reads and he suffers. The agony is supplied by the near-naked bodies of the girls with him; one is Lily, his old girlfriend now more like a sister but willing to try again, the other is her pal, Scheherazade, who stands 6ft tall without her socks as she doesn’t wear all that much. Keith, as expected in Amis land, is short and inhabits that yawning chasm between 5ft 6in and 5ft 7in.