Review
"Rohan Quine is one of the most brilliant and original writers around. His 'The Imagination Thief' blended written and spoken word and visuals to create one of the most haunting and complex explorations of the dark corners of the soul you will ever read. Never one to do something simple when something more complex can build up the layers more beautifully, he is back with a collection of 4 seamlessly interwoven novellas. [...] suffice to say he is the consummate master of sentencecraft. His prose is a warming sea on which to float and luxuriate. But that is only half of the picture. He has a remarkable insight into the human psyche, and he demonstrates it by lacquering layer on layer of subtle observation and nuance. Allow yourself to slip from the slick surface of the water and you will soon find yourself tangled in a very deep and disturbing world, but the dangers that lurk beneath the surface are so enticing, so intoxicating it is impossible to resist their call." "It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to bring people's attention to a truly remarkable book. Rohan Quine writes right at the boundary between literary fiction and experimentalism, and his new collection of four novellas, 'The Platinum Raven and other novellas', is a genuine masterpiece. This guy is as good as [Sergio] De La Pava, and deserves to be the next self-published literary author to cross over into mainstream consciousness" (in "SPR"). "Rohan is one of the most original voices in the literary world today - and one of the most brilliant." "four stunning new novellas by one of the most exciting literary writers in the UK."
- Dan Holloway, novelist, poet and "Guardian" blogger
"Rohan Quine is a master of words, his world is also accessible, and it's a place you definitely need to visit. With echoes of Jennifer Egan's 'Goon Squad', Quine captures all that is beautiful, but he doesn't shy away from all that is ugly. What links the four novellas together is that his characters are all searching for that something beyond the everyday, beyond the ordinary, and Quine is a god, having them dole out kindness and justice. In his world, everything that is commonplace would be annihilated. This is the kind of read you have to give yourself up to. [...] When you emerge on the other side with a greater understanding of what it means to be 'that animal called human', then that will be the time to stop and ask, 'What just happened?'" "Rohan Quine is a poet who happens to write novellas/novels. Incredible use of language."
- Jane Davis, novelist
"Novelist Rohan Quine not only has several books out. He also has a career in alternative modeling and film to look back on. Naturally, he has gone on to make a series of silent short films to go with an audio track of the author reading from his work. It's flooded with city lights, drugs and darkness. One foot in the New York Nineties, and one foot in today's London, it's both hypnotic and gut-churning."
- Polly Trope, novelist, writing in "indieBerlin"
"A cautionary tale of the potential corrupting power both of vanity and of the internet plays out in modern London's high-tech dockland offices and luxury apartments, with brief forays to lavish West End hotels and country houses. [...] As the story becomes ever darker, gentle touches of humour provide a little light relief. I particularly enjoyed the characterisation of the women, especially the wonderfully petulant Angel Deon [...]. While at first this parable's main purpose may seem to rage against the principles of a high tech, monopolistic, capitalist world that enable individuals to lead unspeakably privileged lives above the law, it is at the same time a cautionary tale against narcissism and the abandonment of love and compassion for others. This broader theme gives the story its true heart and depth. Quine is renowned for his rich, inventive and original prose, and he is skilled at blending contemporary and ancient icons and themes. [...] an interesting approach to dialogue, blending idiom and phraseology from different eras, from Victorian times through 20th century popular film culture to the modern day. [...] There are some classic moments of horror that are very filmic, including one on a par with the Psycho shower scene. Without giving too much away, I can imagine this book might put readers off accessing their own attics for a while."
- Debbie Young, novelist and Amazon UK 1,000 Reviewer, writing in "Vine Leaves Literary Journal", about "The Host in the Attic"
"This is an extraordinary writer. I am going to gorge myself on these novellas as soon as I possibly can."
- JJ Marsh, novelist
"cerebral works full of brilliant imagery and invention.This series of novellas are all well crafted and designed to draw the reader in to the shifting realities of their settings. The title novella 'The Platinum Raven' in fact has two young women in two narratives [...] very vividly described. There are elements of magical realism and alternate reality throughout. At times the two Ravens appear to communicate but the levels of reality are enigmatic and intriguing. 'The Host in the Attic' is a beautifully reinterpreted version of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' set in a high-tech dystopian world and a sinister computer global company - Mainframe Corporation, which appears to permeate every level of society. The hologram corporate image logo is in essence Dorian. All the main characters from Wilde's novel are here in more modern form. It has a tremendous and horrific climax. The horror novella 'Apricot Eyes' is a fast-paced horror tale in a nightmarish New York. 'Hallucination in Hong Kong' is a mysterious tale of past and present, dreams and waking with horror and love themes. The whole collection is a roller-coaster of at times nightmarish perceptions and strange surreal happenings brilliantly imagined. The tales leave a lasting impression and I recommend highly."
- Alexander Gordon-Wood, actor
The following are reviews of Rohan Quine's "Hallucinations" (New York: Demon Angel Books), published in print in the USA only, which included earlier versions of: "Apricot Eyes"; "Hallucination in Hong Kong"; and a few chapters of "The Platinum Raven".
"I have now been reading 'Hallucinations' with great pleasure [...] you are indeed a star."
- Iris Murdoch
"He has no equal, today or tomorrow."
- James Purdy
"Sometimes Quine succeeds with things you wouldn't think language could do, like describing a piece of music with an extended metaphor that reads something like watching the last half-hour of '2001'."
- Ben Cohen, "New York Press"
"'Hallucinations' at the end of this millennium is what Lautréamont's, Huysmans's and Wilde's work represented at the end of the 19th century [...] a sadistically svelte structure on top of explosive, primal content that refuses to behave in a linear fashion. It can only be described as literature that strains between ecstasy and bondage [...] one of the chic-est, most provocative things we have read in years [...] one of those seminal works that goes on to be accorded the status of a classic."
- Wayne Sterling, "New York Web"
"The imagery is 'Apocalypse Now'-era Coppola meets Wes Craven, or 'Edward Scissorhands' meets 'Barbarella' [...] or Anne Rice (as screenwriter) on an acid trip [...] the lilt and cadence of prose poetry laid end-to-end, resulting in a narrative that is frequently stunning [...] sublime verbal renderings of the emotions and sensations of human love."
- Hayward Connor, "Union Jack"
"Most taut and clever in ['Apricot Eyes']; it grips the reader and gives a provocative ride [... 'Hallucinations'] develops 'alternative' characters with style and dimension, as well as challenging traditional forms of storytelling with admirable results."
- Tom Musbach, "Lambda Book Report"
"This is quite an extraordinary work, distinguished both by its originality and by the strength of [its] voice."
- Anne Hawkins, literary agent (John Hawkins & Assocs.)
"There's a reality in each sentence of 'Hallucination in Hong Kong' that neither depends on nor is blurred by all its virtuoso f*ckings of the English language."
- Dr Michael Halls
From the Author
In Apricot Eyes by Rohan Quine, a cat-and-mouse pursuit through the New York City night involves a preacher, a psychic and a dominatrix, broadcast live on air - until a horror is unearthed, bringing two of them together and the third to a sticky end.
Having partially regained the power of second sight that he'd once possessed but lost, Jaymi uses this ability in a live weekly television show online, where he channels directly onto the screen those unexpected places and hidden colours and hatching plans that he can perceive throughout New York. He also applies his sight to the task of relocating his friend Scorpio, who seems to have gone underground somehow, but succeeds in catching only a glimpse of him in one of the seedier corners of the city's underbelly.
Across a Downtown Manhattan subway station, Jaymi notices a distasteful character whom he and Scorpio used to know - Kev Banton, who has now become a highly successful evangelical preacher intent upon a moral cleansing of the population. His curiosity piqued, Jaymi discreetly tails Kev through the subway, to see what he's up to, and is surprised when Kev's journey ends at a waterfront waste ground in an industrial corner of the Bronx, where Kev slips out of sight altogether, amid an odd hum of underground engines...
The monstrous population living beneath this waste ground, and the malign purposes for which the preacher and his wife have been feeding it, are revealed during the course of a triangular cat-and-mouse pursuit involving Jaymi, Scorpio and the preacher. This pursuit unfolds on three levels at once: first, in Scorpio's physical pursuit of Kev through the crackle and night-pulse of the streets, from Times Square to the marginalised fringes of the city; secondly in Jaymi's psychic pursuit of Scorpio, whether streaking up high through the skyscrapers' shine or secreted on a tanker as it rattles through the Bronx; and thirdly on screen, in the colourised shimmer of the version of events that Jaymi broadcasts live.
In its rollicking journey through these three planes of New York to the layered simplicity and sensuality of its ending, Apricot Eyes is a blast of fun that trumpets boldness, tolerance and voltage. Through its spectacular visuals and richly rhythmic language, it celebrates the mystery and bright dangers furled just behind the surface of the everyday.
From the Inside Flap
Table of Contents of Apricot Eyes by Rohan Quine
1 Jaymi's hunt for Scorpio
2 The black-thighed scorpion
3 The stalking on the subway train
4 The girls on West Fourteenth Street
5 The golden limousine and the sudden hanging legs
6 Ten screens of eyes in the neon
7 Phaon and the second like a teardrop
8 Screeching worms
9 A lapful of broken glass
10 A drag-queen drives a tanker
11 Ecstasy in Hunts Point
From the Back Cover
In Apricot Eyes by Rohan Quine, a cat-and-mouse pursuit through the New York City night involves a preacher, a psychic and a dominatrix, broadcast live on air - until a horror is unearthed, bringing two of them together and the third to a sticky end. Beneath a waterfront waste ground in the Bronx, a monstrous population is being fattened up, by the preacher, for malign purposes. Jaymi and Scorpio are on his tracks, however, in a blast of fun that trumpets boldness, tolerance and voltage, celebrating the mystery and dangers furled just behind the surface of the everyday.
About the Author
Rohan Quine is an author of literary fiction with a touch of magical realism and a dusting of horror. He grew up in South London, spent a couple of years in L.A. and then a decade in New York, where he ran around excitably, saying a few well-chosen words in various feature films and TV shows, such as "Zoolander", "Election", "Oz", "The Last Days of Disco", "The Basketball Diaries" and "Law & Order: SVU".
He's now living back in East London, as an Imagination Thief. In addition to its paperback format, his novel THE IMAGINATION THIEF is available as an ebook that contains links to film and audio and photographic content in conjunction with the text. It has gathered some great reviews in "The Guardian", "Bookmuse", "indieBerlin" and elsewhere. It's about a web of secrets triggered by the stealing and copying of people's imaginations and memories, the magic that can be conjured by images of people, the split between beauty and happiness, and the allure of power.
Four novellas - THE PLATINUM RAVEN, THE HOST IN THE ATTIC, APRICOT EYES and HALLUCINATION IN HONG KONG - are published as separate ebooks, and also as a single paperback THE PLATINUM RAVEN AND OTHER NOVELLAS, attracting great reviews including from Iris Murdoch, James Purdy, "Lambda Book Report" and "New York Press". Hunting as a pack, all four delve deep into the beauty, darkness and mirth of this predicament called life, where we seem to have been dropped without sufficient consultation ahead of time.
His new novel THE BEASTS OF ELECTRA DRIVE, well reviewed in "Kirkus", "Bookmuse", "Bending the Bookshelf" and elsewhere, is a prequel to the above five tales, and a good place to start. From Hollywood Hills mansions and Century City towers, to South Central motels and the oceanside refinery, havoc and love are wrought across a mythic L.A., through the creations of games designer Jaymi, in a unique explosion of glamour and beauty, horror and enchantment, celebrating the mechanisms and magic of creativity itself.
