A philosophically challenging novel soaked in a rich literary heritage that includes the likes of Cervantes, Shakespeare, Joyce and Beckett, Tom McCarthy's debut novel 'Remainder' hides its high-brow inclinations behind the nameless everyman narrator. Delightfully absurd and written with a concise precision, 'Remainder' questions the authenticity of life, death, art and pretty much everything in between.

Those familiar with the author will know that he is the founder of the semi-fictitious International Necronautical Society — an organisation which mimics in structure the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century and concerns itself with the relationship between death and representation.

Not surprisingly then, 'Remainder' is concerned with that which is left over, the residual — an oil stain, a fractured memory, a lingering smell and fragments of an imagined 'real' world.

The narrator opens his story with a reference to accident which happened in the past and about which he can say very little.

"About the accident itself I can say very little. Almost nothing. It involved something falling from the sky. Technology. Parts, bits. That's it, really: all I can divulge. Not much, I know."

The accident leaves the narrator with a patchy memory, slightly impaired motor functioning and an emotional void. It also leaves him eight and a half million pounds richer through a settlement deal. Affectless, estranged from the world around him and unable to feel 'real' the narrator longs for the authenticity of others, particularly that of Robert de Niro in the movie 'Mean Streets'.

He uses his considerable wealth and free time staging re-enactions. He buys a building and hires a 24-hour staff to create a scene gleaned from a moment of déjà vu. His projects increase, alongside his addiction to re-enacted reality and the sense of authenticity it gives him, becoming increasingly violent.

The line between art and reality becomes more and more blurred and the concept of morality is glaringly absent in the narrator's obsession with capturing the whole moment. The re-enactments, which are planned with the logistical exactitude of a military operation, have no other purpose.

'Remainder' is an interesting critique of the endless layers of representation in modern times — through art, entertainment and advertising — and of how these representations are all residuals of an ideal.

Thought-provoking and cleverly crafted, 'Remainder' will leave its print on your mind and have you grappling with its surreal intricacies days after you've put it down.