Allan Massie

Would they have ended up grumpy old men?

Allan Massie wonders what would have happened to those who died young in their old age

issue 12 January 2008

The transition from iconoclastic youth to crusty age is common enough. The emergence of Martin Amis as a critic of Islam (at least in some of its manifestations) may be an expression of solidarity with his old friends Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens, or it may be that, as Terry Eagleton suggests, he is turning into his father.

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