SATIN ISLAND is a strange book, probably one of the oddest I’ve read in a while, but it’s also one of the more fascinating. Especially considering the way in which the story unfolds, or, shall I say as a nod to the narrator, takes shape.

U, a corporate anthropologist, has been tasked with writing the Great Report --- a report that will encapsulate the current moment in time and define our era. U works for a company that has just won a prestigious account, but due to the secrecy of the project, he can’t tell us, the readers, anything about it. He hints at it and its importance, but nothing solid surfaces, and we come to understand that even he doesn’t truly grasp the project himself. So what he does is study random things that strike his fancy. He obsesses over these semi-notable events --- the mysterious death of a skydiver, for example --- for weeks or months, and then stores the articles and notes in a folder for possible inclusion in the Great Report.

"SATIN ISLAND is a strange book, probably one of the oddest I’ve read in a while, but it’s also one of the more fascinating.... If you’re in the mood for something short and very different, go ahead and take a look at SATIN ISLAND."

When we meet U initially, he’s waiting for a flight in the Turin, Italy airport, becoming more and more intrigued by an oil spill that’s being chronicled on the news. Having nothing better to do than stare at monitors in the airport while flights are reassigned, he finds the news seeping into every thought. When he finally returns home, he begins researching the spill, asks colleagues for news footage, and adds the images and articles to the walls of his office, wondering if this will make it into the Great Report.

In between the odd research projects he assigns himself for the good of the Great Report, U talks about a few of the actual reports he’s put out into the world, not only as part of his job but also post-graduate work that involved the underground drug scene. Clearly a creative person --- once, in writing a proposal for a company, he employed the theories of several philosophers just for the fun of it --- he’s also a bit of a slacker. Throughout his entire telling of the story, not once does he actually sit down to write the said Report but rather dances around it. He even ponders at one point if writing, and finishing, it would be the end of his career. In fact, it’s a valid point that could make him a non-commodity, another issue to consider.

What’s most interesting about SATIN ISLAND is the way it’s told. U, the only name we have to go by for the narrator, talks almost stream of conscience, letting the reader in on some aspects of his life and work but nothing more than surface deep. The best way for me to describe the book is this. Imagine you’re at a work conference. You decide to head to the hotel bar instead of staring at the beige walls of your room. Out of boredom, you strike up a conversation with the man next to you who also happens to be in town for a conference. You have a rather interesting exchange with this person yet walk away knowing little about what he does and why he does it. It’s almost as if you’re meant to remember the discussion in a slightly fuzzy way thanks to one too many glasses of happy hour wine.

But here’s the thing: that weird conversation stays with you and you keep thinking of it. The same thing happens with this book. SATIN ISLAND doesn’t contain much action, most of the story is vague details of larger topics with crystal clear descriptions of the working parts, but somehow you can’t let it quit, even after the last word. It’s almost as if you, as the reader, have become U, waiting for things to take shape.

I haven’t read anything by Tom McCarthy before, and I have to admit that he left me wondering about his other works. I might need more time to digest this one before I start another, though. If you’re in the mood for something short and very different, go ahead and take a look at SATIN ISLAND.