I was 19. Martin was 23. I was still at Oxford. Martin had just finished, but not yet published, The Rachel Papers. We started chatting at a book party about our favourite magazine, the New Statesman. The byline I most admired was that of someone called Bruno Holbrooke. Who was he, did Martin know? There was a pause and a sly smile. Then Martin grandly pronounced: “I. Am. Bruno Holbrooke.”
He was always Bruno to me after that. He called me Tiny. I was confident and vulnerable. He was cocky, beguiling and witheringly funny. Martin’s most seductive appeal was in his voice. Off the page, a rich, iconoclastic croak. On the page, a combination of curated American junkyard and British irony that hit the low notes so hard against the high that sparks flew and made every sentence electric. In a way, it matched his reading habits: if readers of the future want to know how an abiding faith in classic literature could survive, and even thrive, in a world of redtops, porn mags and trash TV, they will surely turn to Martin before anyone else.
