- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: W&N (13 July 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0297646583
- ISBN-13: 978-0297646587
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16.7 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,176,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Book Description
A darkly comic novel about crazed ambition and a Faustian pact with the demon of success.
Product Description
In a dishevelled west London flat the body of a young man lies crumpled, the victim of a suicide. In a stylish family home less than a mile away is a writer: stranded in mid-life, his one triumph behind him, his family slipping away from him, all he has to hold on to is his self-belief that one day the world will recognise his talents. From these two seemingly unrelated elements, Terence Blacker creates a magnificently compulsive novel of ego, envy, self-deception and, ultimately, self-destruction. Gregory Keays is a man with a wonderful future behind him. A dazzlingly brilliant first work has led to a series of false starts, wrong turnings and critical cold shoulders. Reduced to compiling a book of literary lists and stuck in the mire of his latest fiction, Insignificance, Gregory's life turns around when he takes under his wing Peter Gibson, a promising student at the night school where he teaches creative writing. When Gibson kills himself following an argument with his mentor, Gregory pays him the highest compliment - he appropriates his work and passes it off as his own... But when Gregory realises that somebody else may know of the existence of the work, he has to decide just how far he is prepared to go for success. And when he calls in Brian McWilliam, ex-villain turned literary star for a spot of freelance work in his old game, it can only lead to one frightening conclusion. A towering literary achievement and a novel of compulsive readability, Kill Your Darlings vividly imagines the terrifying outcome of one man's Faustian pact with the demon of success.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
An enjoyable satire on the relationship a generation of men have to Martin Amis (ie, deep envy)this combines a vaguely distasteful thriller with sharp observation on the literary scene. Presumably the author, aka Harvey Porlock of the Sunday Times knows it well, but the same irritatingly superficial tone creeps into the novel. Gregory Keays, an envious, middle aged blocked novelist who spends his time compiling lists of literary trivia is amusing, but the novel as a whole isn't a patch on A Vicious Circle by Amanda Craig or The Information by - you've guessed it - Martin Amis. In fact, the whole thing feels tired and second-hand though it is redeemed by joke reviews in much the same way that Simon Brett's detective stories are by their cod-reviews. As others have noted, the ending is a particular disappointment. A talented author, he always begins well then lets his novels fizzle out.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'Kill Your Darlings' tells the story of one-time novelist Gregory Keays, an envious, self-deluded, desperate middle-aged man who can only watch as plaudits are heaped on his literary arch rival. Terence Blacker's fearless, hilarious fourth novel is a razor-sharp exploration of the writer's life as it must so often be lived. Keays is not so much blocked as utterly powerless to write after a promising start many years ago. He is reduced to compiling literary trivia, a project that needless to say is permanently stalled, but which peppers Blacker's novel with entertaining quotes and statistics--not least about writers' sex lives. Keays is further humiliated by his distant, successful wife--a Feng Shui designer in full artistic flow who would have no respect for her husband's craft even if he were to pull himself together and write; and by the taunts of his teenage son who spends most of his time quietly reeking in his bedroom. Worse, Keays's contemporary, Martin Amis, seems at every juncture to have triumphed where Keays has failed, up to and including a side-by-side encounter at urinals where even there Keays comes up short. Such is Keays's desperation that when one of his talented creative-writing students commits suicide and leaves behind an untraceable manuscript of undoubted brilliance, Keays rashly decides to pass the work off as his own. It is a shame that just as Keays finds his feet, however dishonestly, there should have been such a misunderstanding with that underworld crime figure... Blacker is expert on the ins and outs of publishing as well as on the lonely, somewhat absurd existence of the fiction writer. His story moves at terrific pace to a shattering conclusion. A novel not to be missed.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Blacker has created a wonderful monster in Gregory Keays, failed novelist, self-obsessed and self-deluding, despised by his wife and son and ignored by his literary contemporaries. His pupil Peter has the talent Gregory lacks and when he commits suicide after Gregory seduces and abandons him in a fit of mid-life gaiety, Gregory appropriates his unpublished novel for his own. The scenes in which Gregory convinces himself that he is not merely copying Peter's words but transforming them into his own work are hilarious. But the ending is too abrupt and oddly anti-climactic, leaving me disappointed for Blacker as if he has failed to achieve what he set out to do. There are awkward loose ends too. Surely Gregory's sexual violation of Peter's corpse is criminal so why do the police take no action? Why is there no comeback from Peter's parents on this point? Most of all, I found Gregory's involvement with gangster-turned-celeb-author Brian unconvincing. It rings as false as some of the quotations Gregory invents for his book of literary lists!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Martin Amis: something amiss
Very perceptive and darkly funny about the life literary and the strange deification of Martin Amis. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mark Ramsden
Things get Blacker
A wickedly plotted and superbly insidious and compulsive book, Kill Your Darlings is that very dangerous thing, a book about writing and writers. Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2009 by Eileen Shaw
A thriller with no thrills
A fine idea, feeble execution. The tale of a second-rate writer who lives in the shadow of a writer with real talent., and then gets a chance to grab some small glory of his own. Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2002
A major disappointment
I was really looking forward to this tale of literary envy but it was let down by corny dialogue, lousy plot and inept handling of character and motivation. Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2002
Provocative and extremely funny
It's impossible to categorise this book: sly literary satire, a sinister gangsterish subplot, sharp musings on the writing life, surprisingly moving observations on a middle aged... Read more
Published on 19 July 2000
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