I didn't like any of the characters and it seemed to be written by a writer on speed himself. I know about the writer's obsession with Nabokov and therefore I don't trust any of the characters. The novel is some topsy turvy version of an Agatha Christie story. God I sometimes hated it and the next moment I was still intrigued by it. There are moments of almost real laughter as with most Martin Amis novels, but most of the time the novel is just grotesquely disturbing. The ideals of the sixties have gone and the only thing that stays is a world packed with decadent rich fuckers all disturbed by those same ideals. Of course you feel sorry for them, but then you still realise that it is all no excuse for their behaviour.

On the other hand the novel is nothing more that a typical English black humour feast part of the same tradition as Bottom and The Young Ones. In that light the characters are all real life actors who become the victims of this utterly black world created by the writer and his accomplice. I have never been intrigued by this version of English humour - it actually bores me a lot. Nevertheless, because of the psychological background of the characters and the confusing ending the novel is worth more than the tv-series afore mentioned.

Over all it's an okay book that at least confuses you and makes you laugh the next second. ( )

I read this book post-college in the early 1980s. I probably thought it was amusing/rock and roll/wild. Rereading it at middle age, it just doesn't work that well. Amis's writing is always loaded with pyrotechnics but the net effect of the book is pure ennui and despair. ( )

I have loved Amis' work since I found a free copy of London Fields.

Dead Babies is his weakest work. It centers on a party with a cast of characters from both sides of the Atlantic, but I could never quite figure out what the story was. ( )

Many books so entirely focused on sex and drugs seem to be written for the shock value. This still had something to say. ( )

What a fucked up little novel. Each of the characters are so clearly definied it's difficult not to be engaged in their story, even though it mostly involves sex, drugs, and violence in the worst ways. Ironically, the most sane-seeming of the bunch (Quentin) is actually the worst of them becaue we find out what a manipulative and sadistic person he is towards the end.

Most of all, I feel bad for the dwarf (Keith), who really just wants to be happy, but is soo wracked with insecurity and physical pain that he attempts suicide. He manages to survive the attempt, but the final scene leaves him walking toward the house where Quentin (with axe in hand) lies in wait... ( )