This is a distinctly original ghost story. Whether or not Amis found the original inspiration for his green man in legends, or in The Golden Bough, or in other fiction I have no idea. I can’t think of a similar creature in similar literature that I have come across, perhaps simply because there is no similar literature. The thread of the preternatural does not dominate the narrative, which is largely concerned with the interactions between the narrator and his family and acquaintances. The story is told by an alcoholic publican, remarkably lucid and vigorous for the most part, and opinionated and prejudiced in a way that suggests to me that the author had put some of himself into the character. He is the only character in the book who is drawn in the round, but his alcohol-dependency is not investigated in any depth, simply treated as a necessity to the plot. He is bored, grumpy and dissatisfied – familiar enough Amis themes – and predictably in search of sexual, if not precisely emotional, interest outside his rather flat and uninvolving marriage. To me, he is not completely convincing. He is rather grandly detached and above-it-all for someone with such a massive and corrosive problem of his own, but that is not the sort of quibble I would expect to bother Amis.

The real reason for the alcoholic theme is that the author is being a bit of an old tease. Allington, the publican, sees some pretty amazing things, and we are supposed to be left wondering to what extent they are objectively real and to what extent drink-induced delusions. For the most part they were real for me, and I believe real from the author’s standpoint too, until the latter stages of the book. Here I detect a touch of wheel-spin – I simply think Amis is losing the plot a little, a suspicion confirmed by the way he winds up the narration in a slightly perfunctory manner. It’s a fine story for all that. It will certainly appeal to his aficionados in general if they have not yet got around to it, and if you acquire it for a 5-or-6-hour flight or train journey on a caveat lector basis, I shall be disappointed if you are disappointed.