In all the complexity of human nature there are probably few traits as valuable, as relevant and powerful for the author as an obsession. Give your hero/heroine that burning, frequently manic drive to reach their goal, and you elevate a simple motivation into an exciting source of drama. Or, in the case of Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, into something wholly unexpected and peculiar.

After an unexplained accident the unnamed narrator finds himself comfortably rich enough to never have to work for the rest of his life. Physically recovered, and alleged adjusted back into society, he finds comfort and security in the repetition of everything he does. When he goes for a coffee he buys a second, and a third, even buying nine simply to earn his tenth, and free, cup. If repeating words and movements enabled him to recover from the accident, so too does it become the only way he can understand his new world.

Eight and a half million pound better off, the narrator meets with a stockbroker to discuss shares, drinks with a loud friend, and fantasises about a possible romantic interest. Through it all he maintains an ironic, uninterested detachment a jaded Raymond Chandler detective would have been proud of. For him its not intentional, as he simply says, ‘I zoned out after a while.’

Both unable and uninterested in living the same life as before the accident he attends a party, and everything changes. Experiencing the most vivid sense of deja vu he’s flooded with memories, images and sounds. A flood of sensations suddenly real and natural, dizzying to someone incapable of any action without an awkward process of taking baby steps.

The memories are powerful and insistent enough he has to recreate the scene. Handily, there’s his new eight and a half million pound fortune, and just as lucky a catch, a soon to be right hand man in the form of Naz, a logistics genius. Which is where Remainder settles into an increasingly unsettling groove. As the narrator fixates on his first ‘recreation’, Tom McCarthy further narrows an already small world, shrinking the prose down to highlights of the telling details and minutiae so pleasing to his protagonist. Despite the repetition, and repetition and repetition, of the same moments, you’re never bored.

Instead it becomes harder not to anxiously follow through with each new recreation, wondering where and how it will end. Or even, if it ever will. Assisted by loyal Naz and his dedicated team of designers, actors, builders, enablers all, and supposedly ample funds, there follows recreations either bizarre or violent. They number a garage incident, too bizarre for a brief description; a drive-by style assassination and, finally; a bank robbery.

Already widely reviewed to critical adoration, Remainder is a well written book, an astonishing debut novel. It deserves, and will no doubt earn, a place amongst other darkly funny modern novels. A Clockwork Orange, American Psycho and Fight Club make for fitting companion reads, so if those titles don’t appeal turn away now. Otherwise, Remainder makes for the perfect little obsession.

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