Aristotle’s Cuttlefish

Matthew Dooley won the Cape/Observer Graphic Short Story Prize and his debut FLAKE, published by Cape in 2020, went on to win the Wodehouse Bollinger Prize, the first time for a graphic novel. It was also a Guardian Book of the Year. 
 
 
He is from the north-west of England and now lives in London.

You can tell a lot about someone from what they misplace. 
 
Oddball Mr Daniels has spent his life sorting chaos into order. 
 
In the basement of a shabby Town Council building, he has meticulously labelled, guarded and sometimes claimed the lost property of Dobbiston’s residents for thirty years; a life’s work carried out mostly unnoticed. 
 
But when a bored teenager on work experience interrupts his routine, Mr Daniel’s underground world is revealed to be both a lonely prison of his own making and a refuge for his peculiar, uncurbed creativity. A place where hit-and-miss experiments to make the elixir of life, or record the music of the spheres, help him to grieve and search for existential truths. 
 
Told through Lost Property Office vignettes - a snooker cue love story, a granny’s tea cosy and a kid’s toy on an intergalactic adventure – local histories are elevated to the momentous and profound, drawn with playful nostalgia and Dooley’s deadpan wit. 
 
Aristotle’s Cuttlefish is an irresistible and witty portrait of a close-knit northern town and the lives those lost and found characters within it.

Matthew Dooley

**WINNER OF THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION** 
 
**A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR** 
 
A stunning first graphic novel by a Cape/Comica/Observer graphic short story competition winner - a tale of a skirmish in the ice-cream wars that is worthy of Alan Bennett 
 
In the small seaside town of Dobbiston, Howard sells ice creams from his van, just like his father before him. But when he notices a downturn in trade, he soon realises its cause: Tony Augustus, Howard's half-brother, whose ice-cream empire is expanding all over the North-West... 
 
Flake, Matthew Dooley's debut graphic novel, tells of how this epic battle turns out, and how Howard - helped by the Dobbiston Mountain Rescue team - overcomes every obstacle and triumphs in the end.

Matthew Dooley

Flake

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