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<\/p>\nBy Andrew Gallix.<\/p>\n
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Just a few thoughts upon reading Tom McCarthy<\/strong>\u2018s forthcoming The Rhyl Poster<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Tom McCarthy\u2019s The Rhyl Poster<\/em> is, in my opinion, one of his very best novels to date, like a Graham Greene rewritten by DeLillo with a little help from Ballard.<\/p>\n Remainder<\/em>, his debut, opened with a reference to Simon Critchley\u2019s work. His latest book is actually dedicated to the philosopher (who was also McCarthy\u2019s one-time partner in crime at the International Necronautical Society).<\/p>\n At the outset, a taxi accidentally exits a car park through the entrance, thereby producing a remainder \u2014 \u201ca surplus piece of paper\u201d \u2014 in the shape of a ticket that preserves its potentiality by remaining in abeyance: \u201cthe unsurrendered ticket, paper scrap that had purloined itself, slipped through the architecture of the system it was meant to serve\u201d. There are other similar intervals \u2014 interregna \u2014 in the novel where the order of things is subtly subverted. Benjamin Stanton, the protagonist, argues that the time of law (he is a legal expert) is in fact an aporia, \u201cthe gap, the interval, the instant of suspense\u201d that escapes time. His strange stutter remixes his speech so that the ends of sentences come first (his sentences exit through the entrance). He is depicted at home \u201chand and Pilot Falcon pen suspended above a rectangular sheet\u201d of white paper \u2014 a suspension which is the very space of literature: \u201cStanton found himself placed in an interval, a stretch of time that, once vacated, turned into a magnet for events\u201d. The ur-hiatus, however, is the eponymous, and recurring, image of the Rhyl poster \u2014 that of a worker (later likened to an actor playing the part of Hamlet) on a cigarette break at a railway station, who has removed a poster from a hoarding and is yet to replace it with a new one. This hesitation between palimpsest and blank canvas, as well as the worker\u2019s temporary d\u00e9soeuvrement<\/em> (the incompletion of his task, which is reminiscent of the incompletion of the ticket\u2019s cycle) open up a space of creative freedom.<\/p>\n Exiting through the entrance: The Rhyl Poster<\/em> is, among so many other things, a compendium of McCarthy\u2019s favourite themes: slightly menacing bureaucratic environments (here, the Court of Justice in Strasbourg), simulacra (copies without originals), terrorism, realism, metaphor (what things \u2014 Weapons of Mass Destruction, for instance \u2014 really stand for), time, incest, entomology, voices piped in from elsewhere, speech impediments, geometry, archaeology, conceptual art, not forgetting loops, cycles, and webs. There are new themes too such as the world of video games or the \u201czombie half-life\u201d of the UK now that it has \u201cunplugged\u201d from the European grid.<\/p>\n Benjamin Stanton\u2019s origins (he is a foundling) and even nationality (he claims to have taken on Irish nationality) remain shrouded in mystery. We know that he is a veteran of the war in Iraq and is now a star r\u00e9f\u00e9rendaire<\/em> at the European Court of Justice. After meeting a shadowy figure called Pirotti, who is at the head of the Centre for Juridical Collaboration, Stanton becomes a double agent: \u201cTo sweep the old order away and bring the new one in: didn\u2019t this task call for an outlaw, for an act of violence?\u201d Possibly under the growing influence of the little blue pills Pirotti has introduced him to and to which he becomes addicted, he sets about composing his \u201cgreat counter-confession\u201d \u2014 a demented Gesamtkunstwerk<\/em>, a \u201cuniversal grammar\u201d that, he prophesies, \u201cwould do nothing less than lay the groundwork for the founding of a whole new order\u201d. I\u2019ll stop there \u2014 no spoilers about the ecstatic, apocalyptic denouement.<\/p>\n From time to time, we need to be reminded that Tom McCarthy is one of the best and most important writers of the 21st century. The Rhyl deal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> At the outset, a taxi accidentally exits a car park through the entrance, thereby producing a remainder \u2014 \u201ca surplus piece of paper\u201d \u2014 in the shape of a ticket that preserves its potentiality by remaining in abeyance: \u201cthe unsurrendered ticket, paper scrap that had purloined itself, slipped through the architecture of the system it was meant to serve\u201d. There are other similar intervals \u2014 interregna \u2014 in the novel where the order of things is subtly subverted.<\/p>\n Andrew Gallix<\/strong> on The Rhyl Poster<\/em> by Tom McCarthy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzzwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117836"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117850,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117836\/revisions\/117850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/therhylposter-693x1024.webp\")
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\nAndrew Gallix<\/a> has edited 3:AM Magazine<\/em> since its inception in 2000. His first novel, Loren Ipsum<\/em><\/a>, is available now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"