Writer’s Electric Guitars: Martin Amis

Writers’ rooms: Martin Amis | Books | guardian.co.uk via kwout

The Writer’s rooms series published by the Guardian is cool and all. Especially when you get to peek into the lair of a guy like Martin Amis who says funny stuff like:

My writing room is a detached building at the end of a small concrete garden. . . It’s ideal – you can’t hear the children and you can smoke.

Nice. Cool also that the article has Amis pointing out stuff in his room to the reader/voyeur – on his desk there are little bottles of water that his daughter gave to him, on the wall is a photograph of the “gorge in Ronda in Spain” where his mother used to live, etc. . . Wait a sec. What’s that leaning against the wall to the right of his desk?

Writers’ rooms: Martin Amis | Books | guardian.co.uk via kwout

Looks like a hardshell case for an electric guitar to me. Martin Amis, novelist, drinker-from-little-bottles-of-water, and guitarist. I wonder what’s in that case and why he doesn’t say what in the article. Is it because he’s got a Mexican Strat? Doubtful. Maybe it’s because he owns some incredibly rare guitar that he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Just imagine: (Martin Amis speaking to the Guardian photographer) That ebony case cocked against the wall houses Brian Jones’s Vox “Teardrop.” You tell anyone about that guitar and I’ll show you what the word ‘panjandrum’ really means.”