Perhaps it was the cover that first attracted me to the book. It showed a headless man in a suit and tie, with a vast hinterland of minor characters stretching out to the edges. Though I didn’t know it at the time, this image captures perfectly the concerns of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Unconsoled. Ryder, its protagonist, is both no man and everyman; as the quintessential modern character, he is empty as we are all empty.