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Review: "Remainder" by Tom McCarthy


From Goodreads:  A man is severely injured in a mysterious accident, receives an outrageous sum in legal compensation, and has no idea what to do with it.

Then, one night, an ordinary sight sets off a series of bizarre visions he can’t quite place.

How he goes about bringing his visions to life–and what happens afterward–makes for one of the most riveting, complex, and unusual novels in recent memory.

Remainder is about the secret world each of us harbors within, and what might happen if we were granted the power to make it real.

My thoughts:  This was the May read for my book club.  It sounded kind of like "The Bourne Identity" and I thought it would be an interesting read.  I was wrong.  The whole story is very vague; you never know much about the main character and you never find out what his accident really was.  The story is basically about a strange guy with a lot of money that he spends setting up 're-enactments' of things he vaguely remembers from his life prior to the accident and events that happen after the accident in order to feel 'normal' or 'real'.  He pays people to help him and eventually winds up going too far.  Throughout the story I kept waiting for some moment of clarity that would make me say "Oh, I get it now"...this never happened.  I also kept wondering why the people in his life did not just say no to him.  No matter how many hair-brained schemes he came up with, everyone went along with his ideas and this really bugged me! I don't know if I just did not understand the main point or I was just bored, but I did not care for this book at all.  1 Star. 

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