Miyuki Woodward, lover of pints and instant food, has been taking a holiday in the same seaside town for eight years. She is made to feel at home, at least during pub-quiz nights, when Short Mr Hughes, Tall Mr Hughes and Mr Puw are especially glad to recruit Miyuki and her trivia prowess to their team. This year, following an act of raw creativity involving some cans of gold spraypaint, Miyuki will take part in the most turbulent events the village has seen since Tall Mr Hughes returned from the pub toilet without remembering to button up.
'Both hilarious and acutely affecting, perhaps even profound.' Independent on Sunday
'Smashing. Dan Rhodes comes close to perfecting the fragile balance of sadness and humour that has marked out his books as special for some time. This is a damn funny book... had me snorting like a hippo in mud.' Sunday Herald
'In all his books there beats a heart so sweet that to encounter it can be painful; this hones even further the razor edges of heartbreak when they inevitably come. Absolutely flawless comic writing - Gold is original, fresh and funny.' The Observer
One of Granta magazine's Best of Young British Novelists 2003, Dan Rhodes' novel Timoleon Vieta Come Home won the Authors' Club First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday / John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.
Born in 1972,Rhodes has worked in various jobs including stockroom assistant in a bookshop and teaching in Ho Chi Minh City. He says that 1980s band The Smiths are "still the soundtrack to my life - I can't work out if they saved it or ruined it"
His third novel Gold is published by Canongate.
www.danrhodes.co.uk