Dark and macabre yet idiosyncratic and Comic – this book is definitely a square peg looking for a round hole. If you are looking for something to challenge and entertain it’s definitely well worth a read. It won the E M Forster Award in 2010, which gives the author $20,000 to use to travel in the US – we await with interest to see how this effects Dan Rhodes’ writing.
A caretaker by day, by night he enjoys the sound of silence, broken only by the occasional crunch of a spider between his teeth. However, the old man's solitude is disturbed as unusual activities at the museum start to attract attention. A pair of young and outrageously beautiful lovers, a baker's son with a passion for the euphonium, and a dog called Hans are just some of the innocents pulled into Rhodes' mesmerising world.
'Totally sick and brilliant in all the right ways. He sucks you into his world and before you know it, you're willingly trapped. So very smart. I loved it' Douglas Coupland
“Disturbing and delightful” The Telegraph
“A macabre, brilliant and terrifying novel. Good strong stuff” Guardian
“Genius ... A sublime, brilliant novel” The Scotsman
“While never losing sight of the monstrousness that ensnares his characters, Rhodes remains gloriously, mordantly funny” The Independent
After reading Rhodes’s book, many little hands should be clapping very loudly Indeed” The Observer
“One of the most inventive authors around” ***** Heat
“Reading it is like taking a deep breath into the lungs of your imagination” Scotland on Sunday
Author
About Dan Rhodes
Dan Rhodes was born in 1972. He is the author of five other books: Anthropology, Don’t Tell Me the Truth About Love, Timoleon Vieta Come Home, Gold and, writing as Danuta de Rhodes, The Little White Car.
In 2003 he was named by Granta magazine as one of their Twenty Best of Young British Novelists and in 2010 by the Daily Telegraph as one of their Best British Novelists Under Forty. He is the winner of many awards including the Author's Club First Novel Award and the E.M. Forster Award. He lives in Derbyshire.
