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.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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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.
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Outstanding
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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.
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Outstanding
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Daily Telegraph Catherine Humble
The storyline mesmerises in its imaginative brilliance.
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Outstanding
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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.
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Outstanding
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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.
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Favorable
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The Guardian Patrick Ness
A refreshingly idiosyncratic, enjoyably intelligent read by a writer with ideas and talent.
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Favorable
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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.
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Favorable
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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.
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Favorable
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The New Yorker
Hypnotically creepy.
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
To reduce this novel to the level of the didactic is to overlook its considerable, creepy power...Perfectly disturbing.
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Favorable
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Booklist Allison Block
McCarthy delivers crisp, precise prose, though his offbeat tale might have been rendered in far fewer words.
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Favorable
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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.
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Mixed
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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.
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Unfavorable
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New York Observer Anna Shapiro
In the end Remainder leaves you feeling tricked into cozy sympathy with a character who proves uncaring and vacuous.
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