{"id":69,"date":"2008-07-14T00:15:21","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T04:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookse.wordpress.com\/?p=69"},"modified":"2017-09-23T17:11:53","modified_gmt":"2017-09-23T21:11:53","slug":"martin-amiss-night-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2008\/07\/14\/martin-amiss-night-train\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Amis: Night Train<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Night Train<\/em><\/strong> <\/span>
\nby Martin Amis (1997) <\/span>
\nVintage (1999) <\/span>
\n176 pp<\/span><\/p>\n

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[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″]N[\/fusion_dropcap]ight Train<\/em>\u00a0is my first venture into the world of Martin Amis. After the recent hullabaloo in which he doesn’t necessarily come off as a great person,\u00a0I thought I had to get a sense of his writing.<\/p>\n

Here we have an interesting twist on the tried and true (but usually overcooked) American detective novel.\u00a0In the first paragraph, detective Mike Hoolihan introduces her<\/em>self:<\/p>\n

I am a police.\u00a0That may sound like an unusual statement — or an unusual construction.\u00a0But it’s a parlance we have. Among ourselves, we would never say I am a policeman or I am a policewoman or I am a police officer. We would just say I am a police. I am a police. I am a police and my name is Detective Mike Hoolihan.\u00a0And I am a woman also.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mike has been a police for a long time now, but she’s about to tell the story of her worse assignment, one she was personally involved in, and one that has more significance to us than the typical detective story. Jennifer Rockwell, who seemingly has it all and has it all together has committed suicide. Jennifer is the daughter of Colonel Tom, Mike’s boss and a true friend who has helped Mike through many rough patches in her life. Colonel Tom cannot believe that his daughter would commit suicide, so he sends Mike in to investigate.<\/p>\n

Because any outcome, yes, any at all, rape, mutilation, dismemberment, cannibalism, marathon tortures of Chinese ingenuity, of Afghan lavishness, any outcome was better than the other thing. Which was his daughter putting the .22 in her mouth and pulling the trigger three times.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three times? That should be an early clue that\u00a0indeed Jennifer could not have committed suicide. But these jaded police don’t jump blindly to conclusions. They have their response:<\/p>\n

You shoot yourself once in the mouth.\u00a0That’s life.\u00a0 You shoot yourself twice. Hey. Accidents happen. You shoot yourself three times. You got to really want to go.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But\u00a0even though some suicides have succeeded by\u00a0shooting themselves in the head three times,\u00a0Jennifer’s still\u00a0makes no sense.\u00a0While often unlikely\u00a0suicides happen because the person just succumbed to\u00a0“the water torture of staying alive,”\u00a0Jennifer’s never shown any signs that she’s even slightly tired or depressed.\u00a0Quite the opposite. She has everything anyone could want: a perfect boyfriend, a perfect family, a perfect job she loved, a perfect figure, no financial problems, no troubled past. But there are clues that suggest something went wrong — or right.<\/p>\n

But like many\u00a0detective novels, once the\u00a0answer to the mystery is disclosed, it loses\u00a0some of its flavor.\u00a0Incredibly clever.\u00a0And the book was certainly tight enough to lead up to it perfectly.\u00a0But I must say that as clever as it was, as good a read as it was, I’m happy to move on to other thoughts, to other reads.<\/p>\n

I’m also glad to move away from Amis’s style; sometimes his adoption of the jaded detective voice was, as it often is, annoying to the point of becoming its own\u00a0analogue of water torture. All those short, repetitive jabs. In fact, through the first fifty pages or so I really wondered whether I’d be able to handle the rest of the slim novel. I’m glad I stuck with it. It turns out to be a tightly wound\u00a0post-modern novel with a satisfying ending.<\/p>\n

On a side note, because Amis’s\u00a02006 statements<\/a> that have sullied his reputation somewhat, I was paying particular attention to any author signals in this book, written over ten years ago. Early in the book, Mike gives one of those preemptive\u00a0apologies that is not an apology:<\/p>\n

Allow me to apologize for the bad language, the diseased sarcasm, and the bigotry.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hmmm.<\/p>\n

Even though by the end I was smiling at Amis’s clever resolution, I’m not sure Night Train<\/em> was the best jumping off point for getting to know Martin Amis. I think I’d like to see something he’s written with more substance. But it was definitely impressive enough I want to get to know his work better, so what do you recommend?<\/p>\n

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