Little Hands Clapping

A few posts back I wrote about a book by the author Dan Rhodes, called This is Life. I've just finished his novel Little Hands Clapping, another first-rate read, and in some ways the yin to This is Life's yang. Stop reading now if you don't want plot spoilers: the way Rhodes deals his hand, revealing one carefully-chosen card at a time, means that it's not until a good way through the book that the nature of the game is revealed. If I don't give away some details, there'll be nothing to say.

Mesmerisingly macabre, the story centres around an unusual museum in a small German city. An old man is the caretaker, his life of silence and solitude punctuated only by clearing up the remains of the successful suicides that take place in the museum. Yes, suicides. For where This if Life was centred around a contemporary art project celebrating what it means to be alive, Little Hands Clapping takes as its theme what it means to die, what it means to choose to die. Of course, the museum isn't intended to encourage suicide, rather its good-hearted but deluded owner hopes it will offer a reason to live to those who have lost hope. It's a strange premise, but strangely not depressing thanks to the wonderfully bizarre characters, including two breathtakingly beautiful young lovers and a lovestruck baker's son, whose euphonium playing is ineffably moving. There's a fable-like quality to the stories that unfold, as if they had taken place in a realm removed from ours, as if they'd been told, repeated over the years until they were written down in Rhodes's simple, clear prose. Sometimes this lends an air of detachment to the gruesome events: as a reader I began to accept even the most unexpected, horrific twists and turns. It's certainly not a book for the squeamish. But, just as Rhodes deftly steers you to a happy ending in This is Life, Little Hands Clapping gathers pace towards a conclusion that seems to tell the truth about and celebrate the joy of being alive.