Timoleon Vieta is a mongrel dog with pretty girl’s eyes living in the Italian countryside with his besotted owner, an exiled British composer called Cockcroft. Unlucky in love, with a history of falling hard for the various lovers that cross his path, Cockcroft’s latest boyfriend is a mysterious young man known only as “the Bosnian” - except he doesn’t care for Timoleon Vieta. Cockcroft must make a terrible choice of companion - Timoleon Vieta or the Bosnian?
Dan Rhodes’ debut novel is pretty decent for the first two-thirds but doesn’t have the legs to go the full distance and ends in an unforgivably despicable fashion.
The first third of the book is about Timoleon, Cockcroft and the Bosnian and the characterisation is strong, the domestic tension is built up well and we get to the dramatic conflict. The rest of the book is basically a series of short stories where the little dog makes a brief cameo on his journey through Italy.
There’s a story of a young Welsh girl in the throes of passion with a young Italian chap; an Italian professor who, late in life, finds himself the surrogate father to a young Chinese girl; and a smart young girl who gets into a relationship with the town bad boy. Each is quite good with some powerful, moving moments and surprising twists.
The remaining two stories though are very poor. One is about a mentally disabled girl and her overwhelmingly positive effect on her community, and the other is an instantly forgettable story about a Cambodian family.
Despite finishing this with a couple of underwhelming stories, I still would’ve given this novel an overall middling rating as I felt it was still a solid effort, in line with the other two Dan Rhodes books I’ve read (When The Professor Got Stuck in the Snow and Sour Grapes) - but for that ending. What an utterly horrible, cynical and bitter ending - fuck you Dan Rhodes.
I can’t recommend Timoleon Vieta Come Home because of that ghastly final third - a couple of overlong, tedious stories and a miserable ending - which is a shame because what preceded it wasn’t bad. And Rhodes is a good writer - this novel aside, the other two of his I’ve read were fun semi-comical romps - so I would say some of his novels are worth exploring if you’re a reader who enjoys light British comedy; but this book isn’t one of them.
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