Oblivion

'Before nightfall I rode a taxi through Narita. Neon-lit restaurants and bars and dark cypress. The snow and a wind from the Sea of Japan had all but cleared the streets. Cedar temples sat beneath grey skies. Vending machines lit the wet and empty paths to their gates. I told the driver to go on to the city.'

Lyrical and atmospheric. As the influence of the West falls away, an unnamed narrator drifts through the East's floating world of non-places - chain hotels, airports, mega-cities - finalising often covert operations and deals. When he meets the enigmatic and beautiful Tien, a 21st-century floating world courtesan, he becomes involved with people and events that threaten his plan to escape life via various forms of oblivion.

Evocative and sparely written, in the tradition of The Mary Smokes Boys, this is a novel where the journey becomes the story, filled with acute observation, desire and dreams.

Praise for Patrick Holland's writing:

'There is a directness and sparseness to the prose...the slow meditative tension calls to mind the dark romance of Greene's The Quiet American.' - Jessica Au

'Holland is, quite simply, one of the best prose stylists working in Australia today.' - Matthew Condon

Patrick Holland is a novelist and short story writer. He is the author of seven books, most notably The Mary Smokes Boys (2010), which was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and is currently being made into a feature film. His work has been recognised by awards including the Miles Franklin, the Dublin Literary Award, the International Scott Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and has been published, performed and broadcast in Australia, the USA, Hong Kong, the UK and Ireland, Italy and Japan. Patrick is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Hong Kong Baptist University and divides his time between Hong Kong and Brisbane.

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