Yellow Dog by Martin Amis review – Bill Nighy has a ball

In the 2003 caller Yellow Dog, Xan Meo is acceptable upon by 2 men successful a pub who cosh him implicit the head: “Like the statue of a fallen tyrant, helium crashed sideways into the damp paving, and laic still.” Meo is simply a writer and histrion whose precocious begetter was a unsafe gangster; the onslaught is successful revenge for Meo naming an aged subordinate of his begetter successful print. Meo survives, though the wounded leaves him with an altered personality. Where helium was antecedently a conscientious hubby and father, present helium is simply a spot disconnected the aged block.

While Meo languishes successful hospital, King Henry IX – who is struggling to conceal his boredom with the occupation – is informed that images of his 15-year-old girl successful the bath are successful circulation. And Clint Smoker, prima newsman and gossip peddler astatine the tabloid paper the Morning Lark, gets an unexpected tipoff.

Yellow Dog is the Booker-nominated satirical caller by Martin Amis which, done a trio of interconnected comic narratives, explores the baser instincts of men. It is 1 of respective Amis titles being released connected audio this year; others see Money, London Fields, Night Train and The Rachel Papers.

Bill Nighy is The Yellow Dog’s narrator, and helium has a shot voicing Amis’s larger-than-life protagonists. Along with Meo, Smoker and King Henry, a suitably eccentric supporting formed includes Russia, Xan’s long-suffering wife; gruff bodyguard Mal Bale; pornography tycoon Cora Susan; and mercurial shot striker and tabloid darling Ainsley Car. Though immoderate of these characters veer into caricature connected the page, Nighy succeeds not lone successful making them believable but large amusive to beryllium around.

Available via Vintage Digital, 11hr 54min

Further listening

Love Lane
Patrick Gale, Tinder, 7hr 53min
Gale’s follow-up to his 2015 caller A Place successful Winter finds his aged protagonist Harry Cane sailing location to a radically antithetic England and trying to reconnect with the household helium abandoned. Read by the author.

Honoured
Naz Shah, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 7hr 13min
The Labour MP for Bradford West narrates her memoir recalling her traumatic puerility and teen years – she witnessed home unit against her parent and was forced into matrimony astatine the property of 15 – and her eventual way into politics.