Patrick Holland is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Association and grew up in outback Queensland, Australia, where he worked as a horseman before moving to Brisbane. He has worked and studied in China and Vietnam and is the author of the travel book, Riding the Trains in Japan: Travels in the Sacred and Supermodern East and the Saigon-based novel The Darkest Little Room, a collection of stories, and The Source of the Sound, which won the Scott Prize and was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award
Shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year
A 2011 Australian Book Review Book of the Year
A 2011 Adelaide Advertiser Book of the Year
A 2011 Readings Book of the Year "The Mary Smokes Boys is a gem.
The writing is absolutely terrific and the characters distinct and
deftly revealed. And the story is a heart wrecker."
--Barry Lopez, Light Action in the Caribbean "Patrick Holland's
beautiful, beautiful novel is a tale that transports you through
its realization of place and its genuinely affecting story of love
(for brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers). And yes, for a language
as pure and magical as I have read in a long time ... A major
work."
--Martin Shaw, Readings Newsletter "One of those books, one of
those straight-to-the-heart, life-changing books."
--Krissy Kneen, Affection "Barely a scene or image is wasted ... He
weaves Hemingway's blunt sentences and carved dialogue with the old
fashioned storytelling of a folk tale imbued with the dark romance
of a Nick Cave ballad."
--Jo Case, The Age PRAISE FOR THE DARKEST LITTLE ROOM: Pulp Curry's
TOP 5 CRIME BOOKS OF 2012 "A page turning, tightly wound mystery
from the author of The Mary Smokes Boys and Riding the Trains in
Japan. 'Thriller, love story, a journey of redemption ... this is
both a stunning page-turner and an investigation into the dim
caverns of the human heart and soul that bears comparison to Graham
Greene and Joseph Conrad. Holland's writing is spare, gripping, and
unexpectedly flares like the burning of Vietnamese paper money, as
the book describes, for the ghosts of the unloved dead. Here is
humour, menace and beauty effortlessly combined in a novel of
genuine power. Holland is, quite simply, one of the best prose
stylists working in Australia today."
--Matthew Condon "Tense, troubling and beautifully rendered, this
remarkable novel proves that the darkest little room is indeed the
human heart. Patrick Holland has joined the ranks of the adventurer
novelists and enhanced his growing reputation."
--Michael Robotham "In these tumultuous times for publishing, the
focus is often on extremely well-established authors or new ones,
so it is gratifying to see a select few Australian fiction writers
maturing through their second, third and fourth novels. Holland is
one of these, and The Darkest Little Room might prove to be a
watershed moment in his career. The short 38 chapters are well
weighted and cinematic, lending the narrative a relentless pace.
The dialogue is tough and curt, the descriptions often achingly
beautiful. There are elements of mystery and otherworldliness woven
throughout this exciting story but also a sense of gravitas, that
what Holland is examining here is important - the appalling
treatment of women as sex slaves in Asia and the Western man's
complicity in this sordid business. In many ways, The Darkest
Little Room is the perfect 21st-century Australian novel, exposing
the cruel underbelly of life in the Asia-Pacific region while also
managing to be a cracking read."
--Chris Flynn, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald "Patrick Holland
will be one of Australia's greatest writers of the future. I can't
say you heard it here first because everyone is saying it."
--Krissy Kneen, Sunday Mai "I read The Darkest Little Room in an
enjoyable kind of panic, because by the time I got to page 20, I
knew I had to read it in one day or I would have a sleepless night.
It is unputdownable ... Which of his other friends can be trusted?
Joe's fellow-blackmailer and private investigator Minh Quy, or the
Chinese pseudo art-dealer Zhuan with contacts in strange places?
Can the reader trust Joe himself when we see where the trajectory
of his world-weary cynicism and his vulnerability to love leads
him? He can still be shocked by acquiescence to evil, but like any
of Graham Greene's characters, he has a moral decline of his own to
confront ... This is a wonderful book, destined for the
shortlists."
--Lisa Hill, ANZ Lit Lovers "A dark and totally original take on
one of the standard plots of crime fiction set in Asia:
foreigner-falls-for-bargirl-who-ends-up-much-more-than-she-seems.
So... Joseph is an Australian journalist living in Saigon with a
sideline in blackmailing high profile philanderers who he
photographs in compromising situations in brothels. One day a
foreign businessman approaches him with a picture of a physically
abused but beautiful woman held prisoner in a brothel known as 'the
darkest little room'. Before long, Joseph has rescued the woman,
who is mysteriously free of any physical wounds, and fallen in
love, only to have her snatched back again by the gang of
traffickers who bought her to Vietnam. Wonderfully drawn
characters, acute and often painful observations about the
expatriate condition, a vivid depiction of Vietnam, and a break
neck plot make this a mesmerizing read."
--Andrew Nette, Pulp Curry "The Darkest Little Room is my first
experience with the prose of Aussie author Patrick Holland. His
writing has a visceral, uncensored quality - it is as if the reader
has been transported to Saigon and can smell the odors in the seedy
back alleys; or feel the rain running down their face in the dense
jungle ... The Darkest Little Room ... is as gripping and thrilling
as it is effortlessly artistic and lyrical. Many titles these days
are billed as literary thrillers but this one truly fits that
description. There is a poetic quality to both the tale and its
telling. As foreshadowed by the book cover art, the imagery within
is stark and powerful ...This is a story that lingers long after
its conclusion."
--BOOK RATING: The Story 4/5; The Writing 5/5, Booklover Book
Reviews "There is a directness and spareness to the prose that
beautifully balances out the action and the more traditional
elements of the plot, and the slow, meditative tension easily calls
to mind the dark romance of Greene's The Quiet American. Yet apart
from pure mystery, it seems to me that this is a novel very much
about what it means to be enamoured with a place you can never
truly understand, to be a stranger in a city where you feel
yourself to be most bound."
--Jessica Au, Readings PRAISE FOR RIDING THE TRAINS IN JAPAN:
TRAVELS IN THE SACRED AND SUPERMODERN EAST: Shortlisted for the
2012 Queensland Literary Awards, Best Nonfiction
Shortlisted for the 2012 Courier Mail People's Choice Award "Riding
the Trains in Japan succeeds in the difficult task of offering the
reader a fresh vision of places and histories, of catching the
impression of distant voices and also of offering the kind of
insight only acquired through travelling."
--The Australian PRAISE FOR THE SOURCE OF THE SOUND: Winner of the
2010 Walter Scott Price
Shortlisted for the 2011 Steele Rudd Prize "Beautiful and
bittersweet ... written in tough lean prose, its denouement leaves
a lingering impression."
--Sydney Morning Herald PRAISE FOR THE LONG ROAD OF THE JUNKMAILER:
Shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First
Book
Winner of the 2005 Queensland Premier's Award, Best Emerging Author
"A quite brilliant debut."
--The Australian "His imagination is unrivaled."
--Good Reading Magazine "Quirky, magical, melancholic and utterly
readable."
--Bookseller + Publisher
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