The first novel written by Booker finalist Tom McCarthy--acclaimed author of Remainder and C--Men in Space is set in a Central Europe rapidly fragmenting after the fall of communism. It follows an oddball cast--dissolute bohemians, political refugees, a football referee, a disorientated police agent, and a stranded astronaut--as they chase a stolen painting from Sofia to Prague and onward. Planting the themes that McCarthy's later works develop, here McCarthy questions the meaning of all kinds of space--physical, political, emotional, and metaphysical--as reflected in the...