Martin Amis’ most intimate and epic work yet had its birth in the death of his closest friend, Christopher Hitchens, and it is within that profound and sprawling friendship that this autobiographical novel unfurls. Hitch was Amis’ wingman and adviser from their early days as young magazine staffers in London through years of literary gossip, romantic entanglements and unsettling obsessions. As INSIDE STORY traces other significant influences in Amis’ life --- including his father, Kingsley Amis; his hero, Saul Bellow; the poet Philip Larkin; and the writers Iris Murdoch and Elizabeth Jane Howard --- it evolves into a tender, witty exploration of the hardest questions: how to live, how to grieve and how to die. The result is a love letter to life that opens up a previously unseen portrait of a writer’s extraordinary world.

Once upon a time there was a king, and the king commissioned his favorite wizard to create a magic mirror. This mirror didn't show you your reflection. It showed you your soul --- it showed you who you really were. The wizard couldn't look at it without turning away. The king couldn't look at it. The courtiers couldn't look at it. A chestful of treasure was offered to anyone who could look at it for 60 seconds without turning away. And no one could.

Just as the orphaned Desmond Pepperdine begins to lead a gentler, healthier life, his uncle Lionel --- once again in a London prison --- wins £140 million in the lottery. Upon his release, Lionel hires a public relations firm and begins dating a topless model and “poet.” Strangely, however, Lionel's true nature remains uncompromised, while his problems --- and therefore also Desmond's --- seem only to multiply.