The Dice Man

The Dice Man is a 1971 novel by American novelist George Cockcroft, writing under the pen name "Luke Rhinehart". The book tells the story of a psychiatrist who makes daily decisions based on the casting of a die. Cockcroft describes the origin of the title idea variously in interviews, once recalling a college "quirk" he and friends used to decide "what they were going to do that night" based on a die-roll, or sometimes to decide between mildly mischievous pranks.

At the time of its publication, "[i]t was not clear whether the book was fiction or autobiography", all the more because the protagonist and the alleged author were eponymous; both were described as having the same profession (psychiatry), and elements of the described lives of both (e.g., places of residence, date of birth) were also in common; hence, curiosity over its authorship have persisted since its publication. Years later, in 1999, Emmanuel Carrère, writing for The Guardian, presented a long-form expose on Cockroft and the relationship between author and legend, disclosing him as a life-long English professor living "in an old farmhouse with a yard that slopes down to a duck pond", a husband of fifty-years, father of three, and a caregiver to a special-needs child.

The book was not initially successful, but gradually became considered a cult classic. Writing in 2017 for The Guardian, Tanya Gold noted that "over the course of 45 years" it was still in print, had become famous, had devoted fans, and had "sold more than 2m copies in multiple languages". It initially sold poorly in the United States, but well in Europe, particularly England, Sweden, Denmark, and Spain. Cockroft continued the premise of the book in two other novels, Adventures of Wim (1986) and The Search for the Dice Man (1993), and in a companion title, The Book of the Die (2000), none of which achieved the commercial success of The Dice Man.

Publishing history

 * ISBN 0-900735-00-7 – September 9, 1971
 * ISBN 0-246-11058-9 – July, 1978
 * ISBN 0-586-03765-9 – April 13, 1989
 * ISBN 0-87951-864-2 – July, 1998
 * ISBN 0-00-651390-5 – December 15, 1999
 * ISBN 0-00-716121-2 – April 7, 2003

In popular culture
British band The Fall based the song "Dice Man" (1979) on this novel. British New Wave band Talk Talk wrote the song "Such A Shame" (1984) inspired by this novel. British musician Richard D. James used the pseudonym The Dice Man for the track "Polygon Window" (1992). Manic Street Preachers guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards cited The Dice Man as one of his favourite novels, and the band referenced Rhinehart in the lyric to their song "Patrick Bateman".