Foyles

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Remainder

Synopsis:

Traumatised by an accident which 'involved something falling from the sky' and leaves him eight and a half million pounds richer but hopelessly estranged from the world around him, "Remainder's" hero spends his time and money obsessively reconstructing and re-enacting vaguely remembered scenes and situations from his past: a large building with piano music in the distance, the familiar smells and sounds of liver frying and spluttering, lethargic cats lounging on roofs until they tumble off them...But when this fails to quench his thirst for authenticity, he starts reconstructing more and more violent events, including holdups and shoot-outs. A darkly comic meditation on memory, identity and history, "Remainder" is a parable for modern times.

Reviews:

"'A splendidly odd novel... a refreshingly idiosyncratic, enjoyably intelligent read.' The Guardian 'Remainder is an intelligent and absurd satire on consumer culture.' The Times 'McCarthy's prose is precise and unpretentious. His anti-hero is a sympathetic Everyman, and it is difficult to resist the dominion of his obsession... its minatory brilliance calls for classic status.' The Independent '...strangely gripping... Remainder should be read (and, of course, reread) for its intelligence and humour.' TLS 'The storyline mesmerizes in its imaginative brilliance... the novel explores complex philosophical ideas about "being" in a simple and direct way..' The Sunday Telegraph 'Enthralling, dotted with dark humour and undoubted originality... it really sticks around in the mind, nagging at one afterwards, and the most complimentary thing that can be said about this novel of repeating scenes is that it really does deserve to be read a second time.' The Irish Times 'This isn't how we expect a novel to be, but it's why it's a very good novel indeed. It trains you out of a certain way of thinking.' London Review of Books 'Remainder, with seamless prose, endlessly probes the surface of the 'event', its infinite elements, angles, perspectives, how it comes about, how it can be brought about again, then lived and relived in Ballardian orbits and Beckettian vibrations... It will remain with you long after you have felt compelled to re-read it.' Time Out"

Author Biography:

Tom McCarthy was born in 1969 and lives in London. He is known for the reports, manifestos and media interventions he has made as General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS), a semi-fictitious avant-garde network. His nonfiction book Tintin and the Secret of Literature was published by Granta Books in 2006. His second novel, Men in Space, will be published by Alma in Spring 2007.

Additional Information:

Prizes: Winner of The Believer Prize 2008. Related subjects: Modern fiction