It is in part a parody of noir and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and a grim conclusion.

A Void's protagonists finally work out which symbol is missing, but find it a hazardous topic to discuss, as any who try to bypass this story's constraint risk fatal injury.

Philip Howard, writing a lipogrammatic appraisal of A Void in his column Lost Words, said: "This is a story chock-full of plots and sub-plots, of loops within loops, of trails in pursuit of trails, all of which allow its author an opportunity to display his customary virtuosity as an avant-gardist magician, acrobat and clown."

Both of Georges Perec's parents perished in World War II: his father as a soldier and his mother in the Holocaust.

A strange and compelling parable of survival becomes apparent in the novel, too, if one is willing to reflect on the struggles of a Holocaust orphan trying to make sense out of absence, and those of a young writer who has chosen to do without the letter that is the beginning and end of écriture ["writing"].