The Mark and the Void

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Try Premium Plus free

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.

Access exclusive sales and deals.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Mark and the Void

By: Paul Murray

Narrated by: Charlie Anson

Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

WINNER OF THE EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE 2016

A comic masterpiece about love, art, greed and the banking crisis, from the author of Skippy Dies

What links the Investment Bank of Torabundo, www.myhotswaitress.com (yes, hots with an s, don't ask), an art heist, a novel called For the Love of a Clown, a four-year-old boy named after TV detective Remington Steele, a lonely French banker, a tiny Pacific island, and a pest control business run by an ex-KGB man? You guessed it . . .

The Mark and the Void is Paul Murray's madcap new novel of institutional folly, following the success of his wildly original breakout hit, Skippy Dies. While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul's fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul's plan is not what it seems-and neither is Claude's employer, the Bank of Torabundo, which inflates through dodgy takeovers and derivatives-trading until-well, you can probably guess how that shakes out.

The Mark and the Void is a stirring examination of the deceptions carried out in the names of art, love and commerce - and is also probably the funniest novel ever written about a financial crisis.

© Paul Murray 2015 (P) Penguin Audio 2015

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Literature & Fiction

World Literature

Banking

Funny

Listeners also enjoyed...

Critic 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

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

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)

A fantastic novel. I laughed and wept (Bret Easton Ellis, on Skippy Dies)

I loved Skippy Dies (Ali Smith)

An unforgettably exuberant saga (Emma Donoghue, on Skippy Dies)

Funny, moving, utterly brilliant

Most relevant

I wasn't entirely sure about this book to start with but the more I listened the better it got.
Firstly, the narration. Utterly brilliant. Just how somebody can do so many accents, effortlessly, is beyond me. Remington was such a joy every time he popped up!
The story was very good, well thought out and insanely clever. Paul Murray has a brilliant turn of phrase and and I am in awe of his writing abilities.
My only negative was that I didn't feel it was magical enough to get me hook, line and sinker. Hook and line certainly, but a very small part of me wasn't completely captivated by it as a whole.
Well worth a listen though especially if you fancy a hilarious insight into the world of finance.