PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Author Paul Murray says it well: "I've met lots of people who absolutely loved Skippy Dies and it means a lot to them. So it was a little scary to tell people the new book is about banks – which are actually really interesting! You can see their faces freeze a little."
Convincing people that a novel set around international banking is a really engaging novel is always going to be hard. Perhaps if I say that as Catch-22 was to 'war', so too The Mark and the Void is to 'high-risk, high-math gambling/banking'. Like Catch-22, the comic tone really shines and allows all manner of seismic world economic sub-prime mayhem and rich-get-richer disparity to be explored in a heightened manner and there are also many thoughtful philosophical ideas woven throughout. Set around the time of the Greek debt-default meltdown and Ireland's 'Celtic Tiger' property boom (and bust), Murray employs some amusing characters and themes. Claude works for an Irish-based investment bank and is approached by an author named Paul about being in his planned novel as the 'everyman' working in the world of high-finance. Throughout there are moments that brought forth an eruption of laughter. Interestingly, this novel was recommended to me by a former banker! If you like big ideas and comedy, give this a try. Craig Kirchner
WINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE 2016
Paul Murray is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2003, and Skippy Dies, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award in 2010 and (in the United States) the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Mark and the Void is his third novel. He lives in Dublin.
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Author Paul Murray says it well: "I've met lots of people who absolutely loved Skippy Dies and it means a lot to them. So it was a little scary to tell people the new book is about banks – which are actually really interesting! You can see their faces freeze a little."
Convincing people that a novel set around international banking is a really engaging novel is always going to be hard. Perhaps if I say that as Catch-22 was to 'war', so too The Mark and the Void is to 'high-risk, high-math gambling/banking'. Like Catch-22, the comic tone really shines and allows all manner of seismic world economic sub-prime mayhem and rich-get-richer disparity to be explored in a heightened manner and there are also many thoughtful philosophical ideas woven throughout. Set around the time of the Greek debt-default meltdown and Ireland's 'Celtic Tiger' property boom (and bust), Murray employs some amusing characters and themes. Claude works for an Irish-based investment bank and is approached by an author named Paul about being in his planned novel as the 'everyman' working in the world of high-finance. Throughout there are moments that brought forth an eruption of laughter. Interestingly, this novel was recommended to me by a former banker! If you like big ideas and comedy, give this a try. Craig Kirchner
Publisher's description. The Mark and the Void is a whip-smart tragicomic novel for our times, a darkly hilarious journey through the upside-down world of investment banking. In the midst of the global financial crisis, friendship blossoms between a lonely French banker and an incompetent Irish novelist, and chaos ensues... Penguin The Mark and the Void is so sensationally good...it takes the global financial crisis by its throat, and shakes it into giving birth to a wild, intelligent, angry, witty, uproariously funny, devastating novel -- Neel Mukherjee The Mark and the Void is just as funny [as Skippy Dies] , though perhaps with an even deeper sense of alienation at its heart Independent 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. Think Bonfire of the Vanities with a heart The Bookseller Paul Murray has done the impossible: he's written a novel about international finance that is a hilarious page-turner with a beating human heart -- Adam Wilson, author of 'Flatscreen' 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 This novel's arrival deserves a trumpeting fanfare... curiously brilliant, intricately entertaining... banker plus struggling novelist equals page turner Sunday Independent Effervescent prose... [It] takes on the crackle of a thriller [and] wears its anger over the global financial crisis with a beguilingly, deceptively light touch Metro
