This book is kind of hard to explain, so I'll start out with some read-alikes that have related bits and pieces: it practically name checks Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is a pretty good cognitive fit) and some early Paul Auster. I also see shades of The Third Policeman, The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (without all the intergalactic stuff), and maybe Borges or even Rupert Sheldrake.
Amazon describes it like this: "It's a twisting, trippy thriller that tears through the landscape of language, revealing the lurking terrors uncovered in every letter of the written word." In other words, it's the kind of book that might trigger that schizophrenic break in your head, if you're predisposed to such a thing.
The plot starts off with this guy who wakes up one morning to find that he doesn't know who he is, but he's left himself a note and directions on where to go to find out. It seems that this has happened before, and a doctor tells him it might happen again. This happens, because...well to tell you would kind of spoil the surprise, but it has something to do with "conceptual fish", which are living things that most people can't see that feed off of human memory and thought. One of these is chasing him and he has to rely on a set of instructions his former self (who he isn't sure he can trust) has left for him, because this former self lost the love of his life in a mysterious accident and he needed to find out how and why. And he needs to find a better doctor who can help him. And there's a cat named Ian who apparently isn't very happy about all this.
It's an adventure-fantasy-mystery the likes of which I haven't read before, but if you know any of the stuff mentioned above, it's likely you'll like it. This is a debut novel from Steven Hall, a young British author whose only other publications seem to be a previous short story anthology and a subsequent episode from a Doctor Who audio drama. I always hesitate to throw out the word "original" (since there are those among us who believe this is an impossible adjective at this point in literary history), but it's got to be close.
