Author: Patrick Lohier

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‘Radiant Night’ release is September 18! | September 8, 2018

Dear Friends,

I’m happy to announce that my novel Radiant Night comes out September 18!

Radiant Night is about Ludwig Mason, the only Marine to have survived an explosion that reduced his military Humvee to a smoldering wreck in war-torn Fallujah. Back home on American soil, the 28-year-old Iraq War vet struggles through the traumatized, booze- and drug-addled aftermath. He fears that he’s lost his family, his friends, and his last chance at anything when something like fate intervenes in the form of a mysterious stranger named Mrs. S.

Radiant Night book cover

The old fortune-teller tells Ludwig about an heirloom seized from her family by Nazis decades ago―a fabled tarot deck that has 23 major arcana cards instead of the customary 22. A deck that she believes is now located somewhere in Mobile, Alabama.

Whatever it was that brought Ludwig to Mrs. S.―be it chance, or fate―now draws him into an hallucinatory odyssey fraught with arcane symbols, danger, and paranoia as he ventures to retrieve the missing tarot deck and, with any luck, a piece of his own lost soul.

Initial reactions have been positive:

“A rich neo-noir thriller that feels as original as it does compelling.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“Lohier’s prose is enthralling. One dark secret dissolves into another, each one more treacherous and shocking. Ludwig Mason, broken and searching, is a character you’ll never forget; more than a hero or anti-hero, he is heartbreakingly human.”

— Matt Marinovich, author of The Winter Girl

I’m excited to share Radiant Night with you and hope you’ll enjoy it. Following are some links to leading online booksellers (it will also be available soon as an Audible audiobook, but I don’t have a link for that yet):

Thanks for your support!

Best regards,
Patrick

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The first episode of ‘False Idols’ will be available January 31 | January 16, 2018

My first book is coming out at the end of January! (My second book will follow a few months later).

I co-wrote False Idols with two amazing writers: Lisa Klink, a Los Angeles-based veteran tv writer and former Jeopardy! champion, and Diana Renn, an author, primarily of young-adult novels, who lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Continue reading “The first episode of ‘False Idols’ will be available January 31 | January 16, 2018”

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Review of the graphic novel ‘Here’ and interview with Richard McGuire for Boing Boing | Dec 11, 2014

The experience of reading Richard McGuire’s Here bends the mind. My initial reaction was tentative, even puzzled. But I soon found myself immersed and often moved. Here has the surprising depth of a magician’s top hat. The combination of the surreal and the nostalgic are mesmerizing. The book is an ingenious epic of time and space, and I think readers everywhere, and of many ages, will find it delightful. Read my review of Here  and my interview with McGuire, well . . . here.

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Review of Rivka Galchen’s story collection ‘American Innovations’ | Oct 28, 2014

American Innovation_coverThe title of Rivka Galchen’s short story collection American Innovations is significant. Most, if not all, of the ten stories are takes on classics: James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, Borges’ “The Aleph”, Gogol’s “The Nose”, etc. Ergo innovations. These are updates, American-set riffs and reboots of canonical stories.

All of the stories are idiosyncratic and convey distinctly feminine perspectives (all of the protagonists in the collection are women or girls). The narrative voice is consistently eccentric, even loopy. Each protagonist seems inescapably entangled within her own off-kilter perspective. Each is an oddball. A few of the stories are brilliant and memorable. Continue reading “Review of Rivka Galchen’s story collection ‘American Innovations’ | Oct 28, 2014”