The Dice Man
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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.
In 1999, Emmanuel Carrère, writing for The Guardian, presented a long-form expose on Cockroft and the relationship between author and legend, disclosing that he was 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.
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