Remainder (Paperback)

by Tom McCarthy (Author)
Key Phrases: short councillor, siege zone, middling boy, Matthew Younger, Marc Daubenay, Movement Cars (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
McCarthy's debut novel, set in London, takes a clever conceit and pumps it up with vibrant prose to such great effect that the narrative's pointlessness is nearly a nonissue. The unnamed narrator, who suffers memory loss as the result of an accident that "involved something falling from the sky," receives an £8.5 million settlement and uses the money to re-enact, with the help of a "facilitator" he hires, things remembered or imagined. He buys an apartment building to replicate one that has come to him in a vision and then populates it with people hired to re-enact, over and over again, the mundane activities he has seen his imaginary neighbors performing. He stages both ordinary acts (the fixing of a punctured tire) and violent ones (shootings and more), each time repeating the events many times and becoming increasingly detached from reality and fascinated by the scenarios his newfound wealth has allowed him to create—even though he professes he doesn't "want to understand them." McCarthy's evocation of the narrator's absorption in his fantasy world as it cascades out of control is brilliant all the way through the abrupt climax. (Feb.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Rejected in England before it was acquired by a small French publishing house, Tom McCarthy's debut novel is now a popular and critical success. The author, who in 1999 launched the semihoax International Necronautical Society (INS)—designed to map and colonize the space of death—transfers some of the Society's philosophical concerns to his novel. About human reality, social constructions, and the quest for identity, Remainder offers a highly original and insightful allegory of our times. In a clear, deadpan tone, the narrator, "an existential Everyman" (Los Angeles Times), tells a bizarre, disorienting, and compelling story. The vagueness may bother some readers, but most will enjoy pondering the ambiguity of it all.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (February 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307278352
• ISBN-13: 978-0307278357
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #80,119 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faulty Memory, February 23, 2007

By	C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a strange novel. Exploring the human memory in a way vaguely similiar to the film, "Memento", the narrator loses his own memory while being compensatated with millions for the accident. Without a memory, their is no center for the increasingly delusional narrator who stages events from his life and from ordinary life with no pattern or meaning. There is no plot, just a series of random events, including the ending. This book is not for everyone but the writing is clear and interesting for the reader who sticks to it.

32 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Neither the Best Nor the Worst, March 14, 2007

By	Becky Lee (New York) - See all my reviews

I picked up this book on the basis of the strength of a review in Entertainment Weekly (an A-, I believe.) It might be worth the $9 Amazon is selling it for now, but don't go out and buy it at your local store for full price.

The beginning is a bit slow but, overall, the novel is not poorly written. It was an enjoyable read in general - right up to about the last few pages. Given what McCarthy has written and how, the story escalates the only way it can (savvy readers will see it coming) and yet, the end is unsatisfying. I found myself unsympathetic - or maybe unempathetic - to the main character and I had trouble believing & understanding his motivations. It felt like the book ended too early and there are several red herrings / character circular thought patterns that don't really lead anywhere.

I think McCarthy's book is a bit self indulgent. I think I was supposed to feel it was all very clever and cool but I feel like it was several hours that would've been better spent reading something else. That being said, it isn't the worst book I've ever read - it's squarely middle of the pack material.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic and Disturbing, February 23, 2007

By	Brooke Mealey "illumina" (New Haven, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This book has no real plot, but that's the beauty of it. It swirls and goes over the same events again and again, deeper and deeper, a little more intensely each time. It has echoes of Palahniuk, Pynchon, Ballard, Ellis...the writers of extreme fiction have a new addition to their ranks. The book is disturbing on a profound level simply because one can understand the narrator's obsession...empathize with him, understand why he goes where he goes and does what he does though on the surface they seem to be completely insane. Even the surprises make sense. I haven't been this haunted by a book in a long time.