Sun Dog [Hardcover]

A glorious collision of the mundane and the supernatural, Monique Roffey's wonderful debut Sun Dog is a magical realist tale that hails not from South America or the subcontinent but one of West London's grubbier neighbourhoods.

The book is set mainly in and around a Shepherd's Bush delicatessen. While Roffey vividly conjures this "gastronomic locker room" she positively lavishes her imagination on August Chalmin, her extraordinary protagonist. August is an awkward pale-skinned gentle giant who has "the eyes of a veal calf" and "blood-orange hair which limbo dances crazily from his head". His pigmentation matches the hues of the Mimolette cheese that lurks beside the Boscaillo olives, Venetian polenta, Milanese panettone and Caspian caviar on the deli's teeming counter. Although he understands food, much of life is a mystery to him. He’s captivated by matronly co-worker Henry and infatuated with Leola, the local florist, but love, at least so far, has largely proved elusive. Raised by his mother, Olivia, in a Yorkshire hippie commune, he never knew his father. When Cosmo, one of Olivia’s former lovers, suddenly materialises after more than 20 years he starts to wonder about his parentage.

As doubts grow, his appearance, odd enough to begin with, starts to change. His body becomes coated in frost. By spring, just as he is beginning to unearth more about his origins, buds sprout from his skin. His physiognomy appears to be echoing the seasons. Could he be allergic to the deli's food? Or, do these transformations offer a clue to the identity of his real father? More Hans Christian Anderson than Franz Kafka, Roffey's novel, replete with a few exquisite tributaries, is an ingenious fable about the nature of love, truth and perception.--Travis Elborough

August is a large, awkward recluse with bright orange hair and sun-shy eyes who hides his unnatural body away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. And when his mother's old lover reappears to taunt him, August finds his body changing with the seasons and through a year's wonderful metamorphism August changes into himself. A debut novel that is both startlingly original yet warmly accessible.

Enchanting. Roffey handles this modern-day metamorphosis beautifully; her imagery is original, the story completely beguiling

A mellow tale ... Roffey is razor sharp on the daily humdrum ... Sun Dog is a striking and orignal first novel

It’s rare to read a novel with such a great heart

This is an extraordinary first novel. Buy it, then tell all your friends to do the same.

Sun Dog introduces a writer of tremendous originality and maturity, with a warm and startling gift for revealing the magic in the everyday. August is a large, awkward recluse, with bright orange hair and sun-shy eyes, hiding his unnatural body away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. One winter's day he finds a rash on his arm that looks like frost. Later, something like snow begins to fall about his head. Is it some rare disease that has triggered this strange reaction, or the reappearance of his mother's old lover, Cosmo? Could it even be an allergy to the deli's new orange cheese that mocks his own colouring? As Cosmo's continuing presence taunts him with questions about his birth and upbringing, August's body begins to change with the seasons. But the most remarkable thing is that, for the first time, he feels marvellous. Through a year's wonderful metamorphosis - through snowstorm, heat wave and eclipse - August changes into himself.

Monique Roffey is a graduate of the Lancaster Writing School and was once a journalist for the Independent. She was born in Trinidad, and now lives in North London.