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Good old Martin Amis. Sometimes massively enjoyable, most of the time not. I first came across him (if you’ll excuse the pun) in a volume of short stories where his story (How Can I Count The Times) had me in absolute stitches. I was then lucky enough to read London Fields, before sinking into the mire of the rest of his work. To be honest I wouldn’t even have looked at Yellow Dog, having written him off completely nowadays, but Claire brought it home and I was short of books….

Yellow Dog is another one of his massively multi-threaded novels. 5 or 6 different stories intertwine throughout the novel, occasionally touching on each other as they make their seeming unconnected way through the book. The Royal family, a tabloid journalist, a renaissance man for the TV generation, old lags, porn stars and an aircraft all have their own tale to tell.

This is a book about sex - uncomfortable sex*. It’s about all sorts of taboos and forbidden love - incest, hardcore porn, paedophilia, closet homosexuality, drugs, small dicks and premature ejaculation all make a showing.

In his dealings with the subject matter Amis has managed to write quite a funny novel, but the underlying themes are fairly dark and oppressive. It is a return to form though - the language is fresh and snappy rather than moribund and each storyline has a tale to tell. I generally enjoyed it but I found myself disturbed by the subject matter for some time after I finished reading. This is clearly the mark of a good book but it doesn’t necessarily make for a truly enjoyable one.

Overall the plot is clever and engaging, the characters well developed (although all of them are entirely unpleasant) and the language witty and entertaining. Ultimately though it was dark, seedy, and I wasn’t entirely sure what the actual point of exposing all these taboos really was….

* no, not in the back of a Volkswagen