If you are in any way a literary person, you must read Tom McCarthy’s Remainder. Throw everything down. Forget that passable novel you’re reading. This is the real deal.
I will have considerably more to say about this extraordinary book later.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
Seconded. I reviewed it recently for the Quarterly Conversation, if you want to know more than Ed is saying.
Extraordinary indeed. Thogh filled with a feeling of uneasiness throughout the novel, caused mainly by the unpredictability of the narrator and consenquently the action taking place.
A journey through violence, in fact.
I can’t agree more.
Didn’t I tell you? Remainder is the best book I’ve read this year.
I was so excited to post and say “I told you so.” Then I look at all these lovely comments, and I feel like I’m a little late to the party. Instead of saying “I told you so,” I’d like to say “Thank you for putting the phrase “smells like cordite” in your subject line. I can’t wait to discuss…
Remainder has sold more copies (pro rata) stateside than McCarthy’s native UK. The jury’s still out on why.
It’s weird to read this in late 2007 as it was this time two years ago that the book was just out in a 1,000 run on an obscure French publisher, having being passed over by successive publishers who dismissed it as unmarketable.
I actually thought it smelled more like cooking liver, but that’s just me. A great book and one of the few books that lived up to the hype from the publicist who sent it to me nearly a year before it came out.
Andrew, do you happen to know what the numbers are in the UK? I recently read that there are 38,000 copies of the US TPO in print, which isn’t bad for literary fiction from a debut author.
His new book is about to come out in the UK. Am trying to get my hands on a copy.