stained with punk spit and pub puke; glossy as polished leather and sexy as hell. Amis' masterpiece isn't exactly neglected but neither is it established as one of the all-time great London novels, but that's what it is. Thick with allegory; packed with characters you'll never forget; a rendezvous with desire, craziness and death; what more could you want?"" Bette Pesetsky of The New York Times identified the recurring problem of female characterisation in Amis's novels as a salient one in London Fields. She wrote that the character of Nicola Six was "not truly satisfying as character or caricature. She seems to be another of Mr. Amis's plastic women." The review concluded that the book "succeeds, however, as a picaresque novel rich in its effects". Film adaptation David Cronenberg was approached in 2001 to do a film adaptation of the book, and Amis wrote a draft of the script. However, Cronenberg would leave the film for A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. Other directors approached include David Mackenzie and Michael Winterbottom. The film entered production in September 2013 in London, England. Billy Bob Thornton plays the narrator Samson. The cast also includes Amber Heard, Jim Sturgess, Cara Delevingne, Johnny Depp and Theo James. Mathew Cullen directed the film. It had a wide release in US theaters on October 26, 2018 and was considered a massive critical and commercial failure. The score was written and produced by Toydrum and Benson Taylor. Notes References Amis, Martin. London Fields. Jonathan Cape, 1989, first hardback edition. Diedrick, James. Understanding Martin Amis. University of South Carolina Press, 2004. Holmes, Frederick. "The Death of the Author as Cultural Critique in London Fields" in Ricardo Miguel-Alfonso. Powerless Fictions? Ethics, Cultural Critique, and American Fiction in the Age of Postmodernism. Rodopi, 1996. Further reading London Fields by Martin Amis, reviewed by Ted Gioia (Postmodern Mystery) Picone, Jason. London Fields (Vintage International), powells.com, 2002. From Russia with love and hate: the hidden secret of Nicola Six in Amis’s London Fields from TMO Magazine Bentley, Nick. "Martin Amis, 'London Fields'". In Contemporary British Fiction. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008), 135–44. . Novels by Martin Amis 1989 British novels Fiction with unreliable narrators Novels set in London Metafictional novels Novels about writers Fiction set in 1999 Jonathan Cape books British novels adapted into films