News Release

Hawthorne Books releases Patrick Holland’s The Mary Smokes Boys Feb 1, 2014

For immediate release 08 Oct 2013

Contact: 503-327-8849 rhughes@hawthornebooks.com |

Independent publishing house Hawthorne Books today announced the availability of The Mary Smokes Boys by Patrick Holland on February 1, 2014.

  • Longlisted for the 2011 Miles Franklin Literary Award
  • Shortlisted for 2011 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, author of Light Action in the Caribbean

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, The Sunday Mail

Americans are about to discover Patrick Holland, a young writer with exceptional talent and recognition at the beginning of what is sure to be a lustrous career given his numerous awards and literary recognition for previous works. Holland’s kinship with Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses is palpable. The Mary Smokes Boys is heart-rending and unforgettable, a suspenseful story of horse thieves and broken promises, of love and tragedy, of the fragility and grace of small town life and how one fateful moment can forever alter the course of our lives.

Virtual book tour to include book clubs and a ten-city tour is being scheduled for Mr. Holland in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, and others.

Patrick Holland’s first collection The Source of the Sound  won the Scott Prize. And his novel The Long Road of the Junkmailer won the Queensland Premier’s Award for Best Emerging Author and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book, South East Asia/South Pacific Region. His work has been published in Australia, the U.S.A, Ireland, and Japan.

Hawthorne Books
3636 NE 45th Avenue, Portland, OR 97213
503-481-1632

Hawthorne Books is distributed by PGW (800-788-3213 / www.pgw.com).