Eight Minutes Idle

Matt Thorne

I've read worse books and I've read longer books but it's a while since I read a book both this long and this bad. Supposedly a sort of a comedy it takes a bunch of call centre workers and sleepwalks them through nearly 500 pages of literary nothingness. Dan, I think the main character is called, visits his father in hospital, gets into debt, goes down the pub, starts sleeping in the office to save paying rent, is found out and stops. Oh, and his cat dies. There's also a tedious and pointless sub-plot involving his father and eight mysterious women which for about three seconds looks as if it might liven the book up, except that it doesn't.

It isn't mentioned in the book (or else, if it is, I missed it in my desperate hurry to finish the book and be done with it) but the reviews say the title is supposed to refer to strict time limits typically imposed by call centre management on their staff. Call centres are a phenomenon of our time and I thought this book would have something interesting, profound even, to say about them. I was hopelessly wrong.