August is a large, awkward recluse, with blood-orange hair and sun-shy eyes, hiding away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. One winter's day two things happen which begin to change him completely: his mother's old lover, Cosmo, shambles back into his life, and he discovers a rash on his arm - a rash that looks like frost. A rash that is frost.
While Cosmo taunts him with doubts about the identity of his father, August finds his body changing with the seasons. But what surprises him most is that, for the first time, he begins to feel marvellous. Over a year's wondrous metamorphosis - through snowstorms, heatwave and eclipse - August changes into himself.
Around him, other lives are being explored in quieter ways. Henry practices French for her new lover. The deli's motherly owner, Rose, begins to see a South American playboy. The local eccentric, Cedric, loudly declaims the virtues of trees and women. And the formidable Flora helps August uncover the truth about his birth.
'Sun Dog' introduces a writer of tremendous originality and maturity, with a warm and startling gift for marrying the extraordinary with the everyday.
