Mud has no place in a Martin Amis novel. Fresh air, green grass, newly turned earth: none of that is for him. For the past quarter-century-certainly since "Money" in 1984, and then "London Fields" five years later—Mr Amis has preferred the confines of the city. It's safer. When his new novel opens, the hero is living on the 33rd floor of a council estate called Diston in London's outer reaches. Born Lionel Pepperdine, he has changed his name to Asbo, which stands for "antisocial behaviour order", a judicial anti-thug restraint and an acronym for the kind of child one hopes lives elsewhere.
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