LoveReading Says
Joint winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2016.
Claude, dull workaholic investment banker crashing around in Dublin during the financial crisis, gives us an easy guide to the collapsing world economy throughout this novel. He leads an uneventful life. Enter Paul, an author with severe writer's block who wishes to observe Claude and immortalise him as the modern "Everyman". Suddenly Claude's life has a purpose. It soon becomes clear to the reader what Paul is really after and in pursuing his goal the comedy of the novel develops. With some charming comic set pieces (especially when the two pretend to be gay lovers) and although the publisher tells us Claude is to rob his own bank, it is another robbery altogether that steals the show. Nice one. ~ Sarah Broadhurst
Sarah Broadhurst
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The Mark and the Void Synopsis
Dies Workaholic. French banker Claude is so busy making money from Ireland's economic crisis he has no time for romance. Then he meets mysterious writer Paul, who says he wants to put Claude in a book. Next thing Claude knows, he's falling in love with beautiful Greek waitress, Augustina. But can an investment banker be turned into a romantic hero, even with a writer on his side? And is Paul actually on Claude's side at all? And why is Claude's new boss staking all of their money on losing propositions? Is anyone in this whole town telling the truth?
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780241953860 |
| Publication date: |
4th February 2016 |
| Author: |
Paul Murray |
| Publisher: |
Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
458 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Paul Murray Press Reviews
'The Mark and the Void is Murray's best book yet - a wildly ambitious, state-of-the-nation novel, and a scabrously funny yet deeply humane satire on the continuing fall-out of the biggest financial crisis in 75 years' The Bookseller
With The Mark and the Void, Paul Murray has done the impossible: he's written a novel about international finance that not only isn't dense, boring, or annoyingly didactic, but is, in fact, a hilarious page-turner with a beating human heart. To put all of these elements in a pot and alchemically produce something so brilliant and cohesively constructed, one might assume Paul Murray is a witch. I think he's simply a great writer. -- Adam Wilson, author of 'Flatscreen and 'What's Important Is Feeling'
'Five years after his hugely successful novel Skippy Dies, Murray's third book is utterly original and very funny' Irish Times
'People always tell me 'If you love Paul Murray so much, why don't you marry him?'
Now thanks to recent legislation in his native Ireland, I finally can. And so should you, reader. The Mark and the Void not only monetizes the death of the novel, but makes us believe in its resurrection. Praise the Lord for Paul Murray's big brain and tender heart! -- Gary Shteyngart
About Paul Murray
Paul Murray was born in 1975. He studied English literature at Trinity College in Dublin. He has a Masters degree in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Paul was a former bookseller and his first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize in 2003 and was nominated for the Kerry Irish Fiction Award.
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