Time's Arrow by Martin Amis Jonathan Cape
Martin Amis is an author who divides popular opinion, much like his controversial but lauded father, Kingsley. And like his father, he has been hailed as one of Britain's greatest writers of the last 100 years.
While the father revelled in comic wit, the son displayed a darker side from an earlier age. Martin Amis' reputation was not bestowed by birth, but hard-earned through taut, muscular prose; his flawed characters and tense scenes; and his ability to confound the reader in the denouement.
From the doomed John Self who drives himself to ruin in 1984's seminal Money, to the conman Keith Talent in the grimy black comedy of London Fields (1989), Amis shines a light on human nature in the modern world that few can match.
Even Amis' harshest critics cannot deny that he is one of the most adventurous writers around. Perhaps the most daring of his experiments was his next novel, Time's Arrow, in which he narrates a chilling story in reverse chronology.
F. Scott Fitzgerald played around with the idea in the short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a twisted romance involving a man who is born old and lives his life backwards. This novel definitely delivers a far more curved ball.