"Gold" tells the story of Miyuke, a Welsh-Japanese junk food addict who spends her annual holiday away from her much-loved partner in Pembrokeshire among a bunch of mainly elderly pub bores. It might look like a beguilingly slow, comic read, but though the comedy is real it masks a serious purpose. It's about not trying to prolong moments - carpe diem, if you like, but having plucked it, don't try to make it last, because it isn't meant to. Miyuke's attempt to prolong the transient gold of a beach sunset by literally gilding the rocks is emblematic of this theme. Very readable, and in the end quite sad, as many of Rhodes' are, but the end is justified and feels right. And don't fall into the common error of English critics, ie thinking that comedy can't be profound and "serious" writers should avoid it. Most of them do avoid it, but only because it's so much harder than tragedy.
