Synopses & Reviews
"The best new writer in Britain." -The Guardian (London)
Rattling around his dilapidated farmhouse in the Italian countryside, faded composer and socialite Cockroft has only one constant companion: Timoleon Vieta, a loyal mongrel with the most beautiful eyes. But when a handsome but surly individual arrives on the scene, Cockroft is forced to choose between his dog and the new arrival. He abandons Timoleon outside Rome's Colosseum, where the dog begins a long journey home.
Winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club New Voices Award
"A blend of humor, heartfelt emotion, and old-fashioned storytelling verve." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Book Review
"Rhodes demonstrates his ability to spin an engaging tale time and again."
--The New Yorker
"Charged with honesty, biting irony, and humor." --Time Out New York
Dan Rhodes was born in 1972 and is the author of two acclaimed short story collections. Timoleon Vieta Come Home is his first novel. Rhodes lives in Kent, England.
Review
"Mr. Rhodes [writes] with an anomalous blend of humor, heartfeft emotion and old-fashioned story-telling verve. He has written a beguiling and resonant little novel." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Review
"[A]n amusing and exhilarating ragbag, at its best when the heroic stray is inspiring cautionary tales. It may be too eccentric, too diffuse, for those accustomed to conventional storytelling. I have to say that I rather loved it." The Independent (U.K.)
Review
"This is a love-it-or-hate-it novel Rhodes's unsettling brand of black humor and the book's brutal conclusion will make some readers queasy but either way, it will spur talk." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[An] impishly outré first novel....Rhodes's tale has its amusing moments, but it's sabotaged by inexcusable amounts of redundancy and padding...and by a creepy and really quite callous surprise ending." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Rhodes demonstrates his ability to spin an engaging tale time and again, but to less and less effect with each iteration." The New Yorker
Review
"Rhodes...is a marvelous spinner of tales that will make you laugh even as they break your heart." St. Petersburg Times
Review
"Rhodes' storytelling is deft and doesn't tire, a good reason to accompany Timoleon Vieta as he wanders. Ending with a jolt, Lassie this isn't. But it's one reason why the story is more than just a 'sentimental journey.'" Hartford Courant
Review
"Rhodes is a talented artist whose work can be admired as artifice, but in his cold manipulation of his characters, he shows a certain disdain for his audience. Especially those who sympathize with underdogs." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Synopsis
Cockroft, a faded composer and socialite, lives in self-imposed exile and fantasizes of true love and extravagant suicides. Rattling around his dilapidated farmhouse in the Italian countryside, his only constant source of company is the ever-loyal Timoleon Vieta, a mongrel with the most beautiful eyes. When a handsome but surly individual arrives on the scene, Cockroft is forced to choose between his dog and this new arrival. He abandons Timoleon outside Rome's Colosseum, where the dog begins the long journey home.
In this acclaimed novel, Dan Rhodes, one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists, has created a tragicomic work of macabre beauty that both amuses and moves in equal measure.
Synopsis
In this acclaimed novel, Dan Rhodes, one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists, has created a tragicomic work of macabre beauty that both amuses and moves in equal measure.
About the Author
Dan Rhodes is the author of the short-story collections Anthropology: And a Hundred Other Stories and Don't Tell Me the Truth about Love and, as Danuta De Rhodes, the chick-lit send-up The Little White Car. Rhodes lives in Kent, England.