Joshua Cohen’s new novel, arriving with much giddy praise following its American publication, is alternately fascinating and frustrating. It is a tale of two Cohens: one, the author, Joshua Cohen, who is hired to ghostwrite an autobiography for his tech billionaire namesake, largely referred to as “the Principal”. The novel blends autobiographical elements with mock-memoir over its near-600-page length. It is insanely self-indulgent but that is, of course, the point. Cohen wants the reader to luxuriate in the mad world of technology and the internet that we are all slaves to, the opening sentence boldly declaring, “If you’re reading this on a screen, fuck off”. Ultimately, it is hard not to feel that the final product is less than the sum of its multilayered parts, and that this is little more than a retread of the works of Williams Gibson and Self. Still, for chutzpah alone, Cohen’s chaotic fantasia certainly impresses.
Book of Numbers is published by Harvill Secker (£18.99). Click here to buy it for £15.99
