Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
amusing satire on the desperation of a blocked novelist, 3 Jul 2001
By A Customer
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Envy and despair drive novelist to extremes, 28 Jul 2000
By A Customer
'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.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a feeling of let-down at the end of an otherwise fine work., 30 Jul 2000
By A Customer
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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