Get Me Out of Here (2010)

Henry Sutton's dark comedy was first published in Great Britain by Harvill Secker in 2010 and is read here in the Vintage paperback. Its narrator, Matt Freeman, judges people and shops by their brands, and the publisher's note warns that his opinions are his own; the novel follows him through London after his girlfriend Bobbie tells him it is over. (Open Library)

Watches

Jaeger-LeCoultre (unidentified model): Matt's most prized watch is a slim gold 1952 Jaeger-LeCoultre that loses almost a second an hour; he talked a repairer into fitting a genuine Jaeger-LeCoultre crocodile strap, claiming Jaeger alone sets its lugs 17 mm apart (pp. 31 to 32). His collection also held an Omega Seamaster, a Tag Heuer Aquaracer and a fake Rolex Submariner, gone from his watch drawer by p. 91. The Jaeger goes missing after a fight with Bobbie; searching her room, he finds it under her bed, its 18-carat gold lug hole given way, and stuffs it in his jeans (pp. 131 to 132). The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: How I’d loved, especially, my slim, gold 1952 Jaeger-LeCoultre, even if it did lose almost one second an hour. […] an odd sock, a pair of tights, a CD or DVD minus its case and in the far corner my useless Jaeger. (Henry Sutton, Get Me Out of Here, scan cataloged as Vintage, 2011, p. 31 for the first sentence and p. 131 for the second, two passages joined at the ellipsis; Internet Archive scan OCR)