SOURCE: “The PEN Is Mightier Than the Word,” in Spectator, June 16, 1990, p. 54.

In the following review of Visiting Cards, Illis notes that there is a serious side to King's comic novel.

Francis King, former President of PEN International, has written a novel about the President of WAA, the World Association of Authors. Given that this fictional President is called Amos Kingsley, and that two early and fleeting characters are called Gabriel Lopez Martinez and Fukushima Kazuo, the novel at first looks like an extended literary in-joke. This is deceptive. The world in which WAA exists is not a satirical construct in which members of PEN, and others, are intended to spot themselves. It is, almost, the real world, the world in which Kingsley Amis exists. It is in fact central to the plot that he exists, because Amos only becomes President because he is mistaken for Amis.

It...