Little Hands Clapping

Little Hands Clapping, Rhodes’ sixth book, came out in 2010. In 2017 it was pulled out of print after a series of financial misadventures by the publisher, but signed copies of it can be found here. If you buy them anywhere else the author won’t make a penny from the sale, so do him a favour.

“Dan Rhodes is 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

“After reading Rhodes’s book, many little hands should be clapping very loudly indeed.” THE OBSERVER

“Just trust us on this one… he really is one of the most inventive authors around. ★★★★★”HEAT

“A macabre, brilliant and terrifying novel.” MICHAEL HOLROYD, THE GUARDIAN

“While never losing sight of the monstrousness that ensnares his characters, Rhodes remains gloriously, mordantly funny.” THE INDEPENDENT

“Little Hands Clapping is compulsively readable – on par with the fiction of Roald Dahl.” THE AGE (MELBOURNE)

“Rhodes’s book has the soul of Voltaire’s Candide.” BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL

“While his contemporaries waste their time scrambling around for the zeitgeist, Rhodes has ploughed his own idiosyncratic furrow, time and again delivering quirky little books of genius, stories that brilliantly marry a perfectly precise prose style, a wonderfully dark comic manner and a heart-mangling dose of pathos… Almost every page of Little Hands Clapping has superb quirks or asides which will have the reader laughing. A sublime, brilliant novel.” THE SCOTSMAN

“Little Hands Clapping will intrigue and entertain from first page to last.” THE GLOBE & MAIL (TORONTO)

“Disturbing and delightful. This is a crowded, lively book full of flights of tangential fancy and engaging characters racked with unusual problems. Rhodes has devised a neat, dark and well paced plot.” THE TELEGRAPH

“Little Hands Clapping is a brilliant and stylish yarn which entertains from start to finish.” THE SKINNY

“This is a unique, sparkling story. Dan Rhodes is a writer to treasure. ★★★★★” THE LIST

“Dan Rhodes has deservedly made a name for himself as an assured comic stylist. Little Hands Clapping is an amusing fable about thwarted altruism and good intentions gone askew. It should please cynical idealists and idealistic cynics alike.” FINANCIAL TIMES

“Little Hands Clapping ought to be the book that brings Rhodes out of the “cult favourite” bracket. If the writers behind The League of Gentlemen or The City of Lost Children wanted a piece of tear-jerking Grand Guignol for their next film project, it would be ideal. Indeed, the most moving aspect of the book is not what happens to the characters, but what it does to the reader: reading it is like taking a deep breath into the lungs of your imagination.” SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

“This book will appeal not only to his numerous current fans, but to pretty much anyone who can stomach a bit of gruesome vulgarity in a love story. And that’s meant to be a compliment. The novel is a remarkable success.” THE SPECTATOR

And here’s the trailer, directed by Chris Gavin: