Other People: A Mystery Story[1] is a novel by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1981.

Mary, an amnesiac young woman, wakes in a hospital and cannot remember who she is, what has happened to her, or even simple things such as how to blow her nose or what clouds are.

Mary lives for a while with Sharon's parents, also alcoholics, but eventually she moves into a shelter for "fallen women."

The exception is Alan, a meek and highly insecure man who is deeply infatuated with Mary but does nothing to ward off the attentions of others.

When Alan and another co-worker, the cocksure but illiterate Russ, find out where Mary lives, they are appalled and ask her to join them at their squat.

Alan appears tortured by her presence and by the continued kisses and fondling she receives from other men, particularly Russ.

She is escorted out of Michael's office by his assistant, Jamie, who takes pity on the shabby-looking Mary and invites her to live with him.

"[3] The Times found "For all its savagery... Other People is a funny book... an achievement light years ahead of his earlier novels.

'"[5] In the Los Angeles Times, Charles Champlin called Amis "an English literary celebrity who, like Norman Mailer and Truman Capote here, finds himself in the columns more often than some film stars," and found the book, "an ingenious and mischievous piece of writing, nothing like a mystery with a tidy ending...a tour de force.

"[6] Other People is the first book Amis completed after choosing to become a full-time fiction-writer; he had been on-staff at the New Statesman until 1979.