Kingsley Amis (1922--2000?)

Amis is a noted post-WWII English novelist, poet, and critic. He became famous early on with his first novel Lucky Jim which puts him into the angry young man category initially. His ouevre is pretty extensive and I've not read that much of it. But he is certainly of the humorous and testy school, but not everything's a joke: he's not a twit. Among other things Amis didn't scorn genre fiction: science fiction, mysteries, and supernatural stories: the exotic locales of imagination that can still be lived as if true.

1. Amis, K. 1953 Lucky Jim (New York: Viking Press edition 1967)
   The book that put Amis on the map. I've not finished it yet, but I like the part where Jim Dixon imagines catching Prof. Welch under his arm and toting him upstairs and shoving him in the toilet.

2. Amis, K. 1968 The Green Man (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc.)
   Maurice Allington is the proprietor of the Green Man: a coaching inn outside of London, but fully rural. Between erotic impulse and a sea of troubles---not the least, conscience and bodily decay---he finds his house haunted too by Dr. Thomas Underhill, 17th century magician, and his spirit servant. Maurice is a weary, sardonic rebel in dinner-jacket against the constraints of life and the banality of supernatural evil.