Remainder

Remainder is a novel to be read for the existential discomfort that it leaves you with. Those who read this for a plot will not be satisfied. It attempts to recreate (or "re-enact") the soul and its connection to the material world, and cleverly poses the question who is observing who and what is the real self. If you do not wish to contaminate your experience of the novel, then do not read on. Just read the following paragraph,... Read Full Review

Remainder by Tom McCarthy Tom McCarthy is a kid with a box of crayons and his own set of rules. Remainder, a first novel, could best be described as the story of what could happen at the crossroads of weird and possible. What happens when you give a guy a mysterious brain injury and more money than he'll ever need? Throw in a little bit of disoriented pride and you've got the makings of this strangely compelling novel... Read Full Review

McCarthy's story of an obsessive and meticulous trauma survivor is very well put together. I really enjoyed the descriptions and the peek into the mind of someone's painstaking plans and perfection in orchestrating of events in 'Remainder'. The repetitiveness detailing the "re-enactments" are like inside jokes shared with the reader in this fast paced book.

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... Read Full Review

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... Read Full Review