Will Self - Grey Area

Mining a similar vein to Quantity Theory of Insanity, but not as good; whereas that other was viciously clever and creative, the stories collected in Grey Area often left me with the sense that some fairly simple points were being heavily laboured by Self, with the result that their calculated sordidness was merely unpleasant rather than cutting and witty. After the first couple, I didn't bother to read them too carefully - maybe Self is another of those writers whose work doesn't really benefit from extended exploration (perhaps one book is exactly the right amount of his stuff to read).