The latest work by British author Martin Amis, Inside Story: How to Write, takes the death of his closest friend, Christopher Hitchens, as the starting point for this book. Along the way we meet other vibrant characters who have helped define Martin Amis - from his father Kingsley Amis, to his hero Saul Bellow, from poet Philip Larkin to his stepmother, the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard. Were it not for his stepmother he might never have taken up writing.