This book is the story of an investment banker in Great Recession-era Dublin, and an author who purports to write a book about the banker’s life. The author turns out to be something of a scammer, the banker is oddly obsessed with the author’s literary fortunes nonetheless, the global economy is in ruins. Hilarity ensues.

It is difficult to remember today, perhaps, but the Great Recession really was a kind of grand epistemic crisis. Although in retrospect, as far as epistemology is concerned, that was a picnic in the park compared to what we’re seeing today. Fortunes were made and lost on perception and forecasts, the market was held up by vibes, and governments readily coughed up 11 and 12 digits’ worth of money to keep up appearances. (In retrospect, the 1992 sterling crisis was again a kind of taste of what was to come in 2008-9.) Moral hazard was a joke.

I am not sure if the setting or the conceit of this book is the exactly right treatment for that crisis, in the same way that The Sentence is the perfect pandemic novel. But it’s a pretty clever take, full of self-referential twists and turns that break the fourth wall in more ways than are worth counting. This book is as much a commentary on art and its purpose as it is a critique of financial instruments and their tenuous relationship to the truth. The point is not subtle: truth is stranger than fiction, perception creates its own reality, post modernism is an ouroboros that will destroy us all.

It’s also a very funy book, in a way that literary fiction rarely is. More than a few times I found myself laughing out loud. The characters are realistic but absurd, they are resigned to the crisis but they struggle against it in a way that is pitch-perfect tragicomedy. It’s quite enjoyable and worth a read for that reason alone.

Claude, the protagonist, does have a hard-to-fathom fascination with the success of Paul, the artist. This obsession fuels the narrative, but it does require a certain suspension of disbelief. One has to take it on faith that Claude is both soulful and intelligent enough to appreciate arcane French philosophy; but vapid and resourceless enough to allow his entire raison d’etre to become subsumed in some has-been author’s laughably transparent scam. Surely there are some gallery openings or literary societies he could attend to occupy his time? What do I know about the inner lives of investment bankers, I suppose. In some ways that is the point of the book.

The cast is relatively small and comical, but most mysterious is Jurgen, Claude’s boss. He is on the one hand a corporate shill, eager to sing the praises of his obviously-corrupt employer; and on the other hand gleefully quirky, the proud alumnus of a reggae band called Gerhardt and the Mergers. He’s also a little racist and reactionary, just for good measure!

The romantic subplot and the redemptive flood subnarrative deserve their own consideration, perhaps. They are both so intentionally cliched that it is hard to take them seriously. (He falls in love with his waitress? Really? And then he tries to win her by moving some money around?) I get that it’s tongue-in-cheek and so on, but it’s too clever for its own good. Anyway I was hoping that Claude would end up with his coworker Ish.

I’m glad I read this book. The comedy is really quite enjoyable even if the message is a little muddled. All of the life-imitates-art, money-is-a-fiction stuff - I found it a really valiant attempt, but it didn’t quite hit the mark.