Fathers and sons
The ghost stalking this selection is Martin Amis’s father, Kingsley, who, Martin tells us in his introduction, ‘loved Philip with a near-physical passion’, and mused: ‘I sometimes wonder if I ever really knew him.’ Ruth Bowman, to whom Philip Larkin was engaged in the late 1940s, remembers that Kingsley was ‘possessive of Philip and tried to keep me separate from him’. Kingsley always remained slightly offended by Larkin’s soft, feminine side, never understanding what the latter called ‘the dear passionately sentimental spinster that lurks within me’, and insisted that his friend be consistently masculine, abrasive, philistine. Martin Amis’s selection reflects his father’s version.