Surplus Matter

“Brilliant” and “Highbrow”

“It will be extremely interesting to see whether, like some who write in this genre, McCarthy becomes trapped in his own web of loops and patterns. That would be an absolute shame, because somewhere between the detachment and violence, McCarthy has struck a vibrant, oddly topical pulse.”

REMAINDER
By Tom McCarthy
308 pages. Vintage Books. $13.95
The unnamed narrator of Tom McCarthy’s first novel has been in an accident, the details of which he can’t remember. Even if he could, at the book’s start he is paid £8.5 million in a Settlement with a Clause (the capitals are Mr. McCarthy’s) that bars him from talking […]

Play It Again
By Liesl Schillinger
Remainder By Tom McCarthy. 308 pp. Vintage Books. Paper, $13.95.
What can you say to a writer who invents a character so perverse and controlling that he accuses the sun of poor job performance and employs squadrons of house hunters with no intention of seeing their picks, simply because their efforts will […]

Maurice Blanchot’s philosophical work posits the idea of unnameable trauma, of the impossibility of knowing the experience of death, and the sense that the traumatic event, along with its recording or retelling, has always already happened. The traumatic event can be both familiar and alienating—it seems familiar, “like a movie,” but immediately throws you into […]

The nameless narrator in this eerie debut is a Londoner severely injured in an accident. Months later, he received an £8.5 million settlement on the condition that he never speak about the payout or the incident again – not a problem, since he doesn’t remember it. Our hero then begins to wholly recreate and […]

February 13, 2007
Remains of the Dude
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a nice thirtysomething Englishman in possession of 8.5 million sterling must be in want of … um, a dramatic reenactment?
At least, such is the case for the amnesiac antihero of Remainder, the gripping debut novel by Brit Tom McCarthy. (continue reading…)

Shards of Information Add Up to a Brilliant Novel
by Doug Edmond
Remainder is a unique and brilliant novel. It is the story of a young “everyday” Englishman traumatized by an accident that eliminates his memory but leaves him £8.5 million richer. All that he knows is that something fell out of the sky and hit him. And someone […]

Desperately Seeking the Authentic
by Shaun Smith
There’s a scene early on in Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder where we begin to realize something is askew. I won’t divulge it, except to say McCarthy, in a wholly intentional manner, unmasks the fiction of Remainder to expose it for what it really is: a fiction. This is odd behaviour […]

Beyond the Pleasure Principle
by Richard Bausch
INTELLECT: What’s going on? Why are there two of us?
PLEASURE: Because we have a grievous disagreement about this novel.