SOURCE: "Bits of Rough," in New Statesman and Society, October, 1993, pp. 39-40.

In the following negative review, King calls Visiting Mrs. Nabokov "gossipy" and "egotistical," and dismisses the collection of journalistic pieces as "pretty miserable."

Martin Amis excites hero-worship and resentment in equal measure. From male writers, this is often a symptom of wanting to be him. This new collection of journalism covers a range of subjects that include snooker, fiction and Martin Amis. Being female, I should, in Amis' view, be "less baffled and repelled" in making critical judgments. Here we go, then.

It wasn't his fault that he was born into the literati, and Visiting Mrs Nabokov abounds in literary gossip. When Burgess and Borges met, they chatted in Anglo-Saxon! Excuse me: what a pair of nellies. Here's Amis on Saul Bellow at a conference in Haifa: "He was in stalwart attendance … on the day I...