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Remainder
A Novel
by Tom McCarthy


7.7

based on 14 reviews
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based on 4 votes
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McCarthy's debut novel features an unnamed narrator who suffers memory loss as the result of a mysterious accident, and who is awarded an £8.5 million settlement which he uses to help re-enact events he remembers or imagines in his quest for identity.

Vintage, 320 pages
02/13/2007
$13.95

ISBN: 0307278352

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Los Angeles Times Tod Goldberg

Captivating and challenging...This is a book to be read and then reread, rich as it is with its insights, daring as it is with its contradictions.

The New York Times Book Review Liesl Schillinger

McCarthy’s superb stylistic control and uncanny imagination transport this novel beyond the borders of science fiction. His bleak humor, hauntingly affectless narrator and methodical expansion on his theme make Remainder more than an entertaining brain-teaser: it’s a work of novelistic philosophy, as disturbing as it is funny.

Daily Telegraph Catherine Humble

The storyline mesmerises in its imaginative brilliance.

The Independent Peter Carty

Do not be deterred by Remainder's elevated associations, because it wears its high-art attire discreetly. 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.

London Review Of Books Daniel Soar

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.

The Guardian Patrick Ness

A refreshingly idiosyncratic, enjoyably intelligent read by a writer with ideas and talent.

Publishers Weekly

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.

Bookslut Adam Rice

If Remainder has any faults, they are in its last hundred pages. The deterioration of the narrator as exhibited in the deterioration of cohesive prose can be frustrating and overtly contrived. This is one of the main reasons that it may be daunting to prolong the reading experience past one or two sittings.

The New Yorker

Hypnotically creepy.

Kirkus Reviews

To reduce this novel to the level of the didactic is to overlook its considerable, creepy power...Perfectly disturbing.

Booklist Allison Block

McCarthy delivers crisp, precise prose, though his offbeat tale might have been rendered in far fewer words.

Entertainment Weekly Michael Endelman

In taut and chilly prose, McCarthy describes how this mission becomes a disturbing obsession; the horrifying conclusion is visible 30 pages off, but it's no less shocking when it arrives.

San Francisco Chronicle Margot Kaminsky

A chillingly clever novel of patterns that fools you into thinking it's a novel about plot...Remainder is paradoxically quite simple, fairly one-note, and tightly controlled to the point of occasionally being boring.

New York Observer Anna Shapiro

In the end Remainder leaves you feeling tricked into cozy sympathy with a character who proves uncaring and vacuous.

The average user rating for this book is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mike D gave it a3:
It starts off well, but a book about a man repeating acts over and over can get pretty boring. Particularly when the author gets mired in descriptions of hiring staff, renovations, rehearsals, phone calls to set up meetings and on and on. The main character becomes a total cipher. I was bored and frustrated before too long. Too bad, because I was loving it for the first few chapters.

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Remainder A Novel by Tom McCarthy

Remainder
A Novel
by Tom McCarthy