October 26, 2020 Issue

What’s so great about autofiction? I wish Giles Harvey, in his absorbing “Last Laugh,” a review of Martin Amis’s new novel Inside Story, in this week’s issue, had addressed that question. Comparing Inside Story to Amis’s earlier Experience, he says it “often feels like something of a sequel—or, at certain moments, a remake or a director’s cut.” But hold on – Experience is a memoir; Inside Story is a novel. Reading the former, I expect accuracy; reading the latter, I expect … what? Not accuracy. Harvey quotes Amis describing Inside Story as “not loosely but fairly strictly autobiographical.” For me, “fairly strictly” doesn’t cut it. It signals unreliability. Harvey says that the narrator of Inside Story is called Martin Amis, and “much of what he relates—about his life, his career, and his illustrious inner circle—is verifiably unmade-up.” Much of what he relates – okay, but much isn’t all. And it’s that residue of fiction that spoils the mix for me. I know I sound puritanical on this subject of fact versus fiction. But when a writer is dealing with real-life people and real-life events, I think he has a duty to tell it straight.