[1] Rhodes grew up in Devon,[2] and graduated in Humanities from the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales) in 1994, returning in 1997 to complete an MA in Creative Writing.
He has held a variety of jobs, including stockroom assistant for Waterstones, barman in his parents' pub, and a teacher in Ho Chi Minh City.
[5] Following the publication of his second book, Rhodes's frustration with the publishing industry led him to announce his retirement from writing, though he later said, "I haven't really given up.
[citation needed] Rhodes was included on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list in 2003, to his own bemusement and frustration, partly because of Granta's selection methods ("It's one thing to judge a writer by stuff they've written, but to judge them on stuff they're going to write is lunacy") but also because some of the others on the list failed to respond to his request to sign a joint statement protesting the Iraq War.
[6][7] In 2014, Rhodes self-published the novel When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow, a "rural farce" about a visit to an obscure English village by a fictional Richard Dawkins, stating that he wanted to get the book out faster than conventional publishing allowed.