A wickedly delightful collection of stories establishing Amis as one of the most versatile and gifted writers of his generation "Amis applies his comic timing, his perfect pitch and his curatorial eye to some of the burning issues of our time." — The New York Times Book Review "Martin Amis is a force unto himself.... There is, quite simply, no one else like him."— The Washington Post Martin Amis once again demonstrates why he is a modern master of the short story form. In "Career Move," screenwriters struggle for their art, while poets are the darlings of Hollywood. In "Straight Fiction," the love that dare not speak its name calls out to the hero when he encounters a forbidden object of desire—the opposite sex. And in "State of England," Mal, a former "minder to the superstars," discovers how to live in a country where "class and race and gender were supposedly gone."