
“When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.”
Source: House of Meetings
House of Meetings, by Martin Amis, is a 2006 novel about two brothers who share a common love interest while living in a Soviet gulag during the last decade of Stalin's rule. This novel was written by Amis during a two-year-long self-imposed exile in Uruguay following the release and tepid reception afforded to his 2003 novel Yellow Dog. The writing of House of Meetings "precipitated creative crisis" for Amis, which Amis reflected upon in 2010:
“When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.”
Source: House of Meetings