From: Vivian Droptrou
Category: Amis's Works
Date: 7/1/99
Time: 8:58:00 PM
Remote Name: 129.219.247.97
*DIARY OF A LITERARY DOGFIGHT* EXCERPT / BY RICHARD COHEN
"For the past 10 days we have heard the growling and barking that accompany a good literary dogfight. Should Kingsley Amis's biographer, Eric Jacobs, be the editor of his letters? Was Martin Amis right to sack him, and appoint instead an academic who had never known his father? What are the rights and wrongs of Jacobs selling a diary about Kingsley's last weeks to a Sunday newspaper?...The unedited diary, some 40,000 words long, contained material about the possible reason for the break-up of Martin's marriage which must have been hurtful, as well as other reflections by Kingsley about his children, notably Sally Amis---although Jacobs has been at pains to point out that these were not to be part of any serialisation, and that in any deal with a paper he would have the final say over what appeared. 'I just wish people would suspend judgment until the diary has been published', Jacobs had said before the extracts appeared. 'Then they can see it's not hostile or exploitative on my part.' He could easily have pointed out, too, that Kingsley's first wife, Hilly, recently charged pounds 1,000 for a newspaper interview. If he is financially motivated, he is not the only one."