Little Hands Clapping
 First edition cover (with quote from Douglas Coupland) | |
| Author | Dan Rhodes |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | David Roberts |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Canongate Books |
Publication date | 4 February 2010 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print & eBook |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 1-84767-529-8 |
Little Hands Clapping, is a novel by British author Dan Rhodes, published in 2010 by Canongate. Its title comes from a line in Robert Browning's poem The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Plot introduction
The novel centres around a bizarre German museum dedicated to suicide; Herr Schmidt, its grim grey curator; and the respectable Doctor Ernst Frölicher and his shocking secret.
Various characters appear with short lifestories including the Luciano Pavarotti-obsessed founder of the museum and her Pavarotti-lookalike husband, Hulda the cleaner who believes she is doomed to Hell, and Madalena the suicidal Portuguese student.
Reception
- "Totally sick and brilliant, He sucks you into his world. I loved it." Douglas Coupland[1]
- "Almost every page of Little Hands Clapping has superb quirks or asides which will have the reader laughing. A sublime, brilliant novel", The Scotsman[2]
- "It should please cynical idealists and idealistic cynics alike." Financial Times[3]
References
- ^ Cover quote
- ^ "Little Hands Clapping". 5 January 2010.
- ^ Turpin, Adrian (7 February 2010). "Little Hands Clapping". Financial Times. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
External links
- Little Hands Clapping at author's website
- Dan Rhodes's novel about a museum dedicated to suicide is by turns witty and gruesome review from The Guardian
- A mixture of the quaint, the sweet and the distinctly unpleasant, review from The Guardian by Colin Greenland
- review from The Independent
- "I don't feel like a natural" interview at The Skinny
- Five books that loomed large while I was writing Little Hands Clapping
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