U. is a 'corporate anthropologist' who, while working on a giant, epoch-defining project no one really understands, is also tasked with writing the Great Report on our society. But instead, U. spends his days procrastinating, meandering through endless buffer-zones of information and becoming obsessed by the images with which the world bombards him on a daily basis: oil spills, African traffic jams, roller-blade processions.

Is there a secret logic holding all these images together? Once cracked, will it unlock the master-meaning of our era? Might it have something to do with the dead parachutists in the news? Perhaps; perhaps not.

*Shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker prize* *Shortlisted for the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize * A novel for our times, from 'a master craftsman who is steering the contemporary novel towards exciting new territories' (Observer).

About the Author
Tom McCarthy is the author of Tintin and the Secret of Literature and four internationally celebrated novels: Remainder, Men in Space, C, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Walter Scott Prize, and Satin Island, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize. In 2013 McCarthy was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Literature Prize by Yale University. His creation, in 1999, of the International Necronautical Society has led to installations and exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, from Tate Britain and the ICA in London to The Drawing Center in New York.

Reviews
Smart, shimmering and thought-provoking...McCarthy isn't a frustrated cultural theorist who must content himself with writing novels; he's a born novelist, a pretty fantastic one, who has figured out a way to make cultural theory funny, scary and suspenseful - in other words, compulsively readable. * New York Times *
Should you read the new Tom McCarthy book? (A: Yes. Always yes.) * Huffington Post *
Dazzling and elusive... a magisterial ethnographic portrait of our overstimulated, interconnected, simulacra-addicted times. * Atlantic *
The kind of strange and ambitious fiction that you feared might have died with J. G. Ballard. ...Provokes and beguiles and, at the point of revelation, it withholds. On finishing it you will have the powerful urge to throw it across the room, then the powerful urge to pick it up to read again. And that's what's so brilliant. -- Duncan White, 5 stars * Daily Telegraph *
Confusing, clever and about to be massive. * Stylist *


Awards
Short-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015 (UK) and The Goldsmiths Prize 2015 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9780099546993
Author Tom McCarthy
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 170g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 15mm