Old Devils

Winner of the Booker in 1986, THE OLD DEVILS is considered by many (including Martin Amis) to be Kingsley Amis's masterpiece, a viciously funny, and surprisingly heartfelt portrait of a group of witty and besotted old men and their wives living in Wales. The plot kicks off with the return of Alun Weaver, a washed-up novelist and incorrigible womanizer, and his still-beautiful wife Rhiannon. Alun sets about trying to seduce the wives of his old friends while the husbands find they are still infatuated with Rhiannon. In a typical Amis novel, Alun's acerbic personality would dominate the story, but partway through the narrative Alun drops dead (choking on his whiskey) and the rest of the "Old Devils" are left to make sense of his life, and of theirs.