David Francis, based in Los Angeles where he works for the Norton Rose Fulbright law firm, spends part of each year back on his family’s farm in Australia. He is the author of The Great Inland Sea, published to acclaim in seven countries, and Stray Dog Winter, Book of the Year in The Advocate, winner of the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Prize for Literature, and a LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist. He has taught creative writing at UCLA, Occidental College, and in the Masters of Professional Writing program at USC. His short fiction and articles have appeared in publications including Harvard Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Southern California Review, Best Australian Stories, Australian Love Stories, and The Rattling Wall. He is Vice President of PEN Center USA.
Praise for Wedding Bush Road:
"In prose as severely beautiful as the land depicted, Francis takes
us into the bleeding heart of family. Well recommended for many
readers." —Library Journal
"Francis’s prose is urgent and at times breathless, packed with
sense–rich descriptions. Poetic images swirl off the page . . .
Wedding Bush Road envelopes us in a strange world where nothing can
be taken for granted. This is a rich, beautifully textured novel,
unforgettable in its setting and the people who live there." —Los
Angeles Review of Books
"A rich and moving and resonant story about the debts we owe to the
people and places of our past, with writing so evocative that it
feels like burying your face in the Australian soil. David Francis
has given us a masterpiece, a novel for anyone who’s ever left
their hometown." —Nathan Hill, author of The Nix
"David Francis writes with precision and sensitivity about that
most complicated of subjects: Home. Amid unforgettable landscapes
and characters that are both beautiful and violent, Wedding Bush
Road grapples with discontent and restlessness. Francis turns a
sharp but generous eye on those who won't leave and those who can't
stay, reminding us that family can be the most dangerous place of
all." —Mark Sarvas, author of Harry, Revised
"The miracle of Wedding Bush Road is that each deeply flawed
character is also right. In the end we come to feel that beneath so
much fury, the troubled and idiosyncratic life of each character is
driven by a logic that is emotional and likely also moral. That
this is the human condition.. Compelling and honest, this is the
novel's greatest gift. This is the masterful feat achieved here in
these pages."—Mary Rakow, author of This Is Why I Came
"Here's an Australia so tactile that the page itself begins to feel
textured. Francis ably tells a story of a man's internal struggle
as expressed through conflicts as rooted and primal as the soil. A
dynamic and inviting read." —Aimee Bender, author of The Color
Master
"Francis proves that this reckless landscape also has a darkly
seductive pull...Domestic drama with an offbeat, rural flavor."
—Kirkus
"I have known David Francis and his work for a long time, and I
think Wedding Bush Road is his best book yet!" —Jane Smiley
"With an eye for the transcendent detail, and a pitch perfect ear,
David Francis gorgeously summons a farm in rural Australia. The
wonderfully complex relationships among its inhabitants reflect
nothing less than the tensions wrought by the country's fractious
history of colonialism. Who belongs to the land and to whom does
the land belong? These are the uneasy questions raised by this
searching, lovely novel." —Marisa Silver, author of Mary Coin
"A psychologically acute tale of the decline of a patrician
Australian family and the forces arrayed against them. Class, sex
and land knit together in this compellingly modern take on a
timeless struggle. Gorgeous, dangerous and utterly captivating. "
—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black
"Who hasn't packed a bag and headed home? Wedding Bush Road is a
beautiful, intelligent book about love, loss, and the unforgettable
landscapes that made us who we are." —David Ebershoff, author of
The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife
Praise for The Great Inland Sea:
"Arresting and mysterious." —Jane Smiley
"An elegant first novel..the author's evocative images of Australia
—the harsh yet compelling landscape, the searing heat, the
inescapable dust, the ever present insects — and his spare, elegiac
style set this novel apart from most coming of age stories as Day's
innocence is refreshed with maturity and hopefulness." — Booklist,
Starred Review
"Loneliness and loss well up like groundwater in this spare,
haunting novel. David Francis is a master of elegant
understatement." —Janet Fitch
"A compelling dance across a stark and evocative landscape. Each
step reveals a new perspective on the characters' humanity and, at
times, their brutality." —Manil Suri
"A truly amazing novel." —Susan Straight
"as unforgiving and seductive as Riverina itself." —Los Angeles
Times
"magically lyrical. . .a truly rewarding literary find." —Denver
Post
"...gracefully [and] affecting first novel." – Washington Post
"David Francis may not be a poet, but he sure writes like one. His
prose is lean but dreamy, full of sensual detail...It's all done
with skill and elegance." – San Francisco Chronicle
"A spare, dark, brilliant book. Clear the day to read it." – Martin
Cruz Smith, author of Gorky Park
"Francis's language confirms and compliments the plot. . .The
guiding insight of the book [is] that there is something deep,
something meaningful, about the process by which humanity is
achieved even when so much has been stripped away." —The
Believer
"As spare as the outback, this is a quietly evocative and at times
even poetic first novel." —Library Journal
"Spare prose, startling images, and an emotional landscape as harsh
as the setting." —Kirkus Reviews
"beautiful and moving." —Times Literary Supplement
Praise for Stray Dog Winter:
"Best Book of the Year" – The Advocate – Best Entertainment of
2008
"Best Australian novel of the year." — Australian Literary Review–
Best of the Year edition
LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist
Winner Audiophile Award 2008
"Vibrant with the discordant images of political repression and
smoldering sexuality, Francis ethereally transports readers to a
preternatural time where nothing and no one are what they seem." –
Booklist
"Francis's prose has the sparse elegance of a Xeriscape. Every
detail holds water." – Los Angeles Magazine
"unstoppable inevitable momentum...a haunting KGB tale" – Time Out
Chicago
"An impressive political thriller, beautifully crafted with a
spectacular climax." – Australian Book Review
"A stylish new literary thriller. . .Francis does a brilliant job
of building and sustaining tension." —The Advocate
"Evocative and mysterious...full of a menacing beauty." –
Curledup.com
"[An] excellent thriller....original and unconventional....Francis
is masterly at building suspense and a palpable sense of intrigue."
– Sydney Morning Herald
"Truly extraordinary. . ..the tension builds unrelentingly. .
..sensuous, musical, a joy to read." —LAMBDA Literary Journal
"Filled with suspense, intrigue, and a good deal of sexiness, Stray
Dog Winter is a novel of breathless moments, passion, politics, and
atmosphere so thick you can feel it."
– IndieBound: Indie Favorites
"Taut, suspenseful. . ..elegantly written and perfectly executed. .
.original, gripping and chilling, by one of Australia's most
promising young writers" – Tucson Citizen
"Stray Dog Winter – A stylish thriller."– WBUR Boston – Best Reads
of 2008
"astute, beautiful prose. . .poetic." —Sarah Weinman, author of
Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind
"Elegantly written and grippingly suspenseful, David Francis's
Stray Dog Winter takes readers right into the heart of Graham
Greene country."– Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint
It Black
"David Francis has pulled off that most difficult of feats—the
elegantly–written, lyrical thriller. This is a novel with
intensity, a formidable landscape, and a plot that kept me reading
all night. Impressive and compulsively readable." – Susan Straight,
author of A Million Nightingales and Highwire Moon, finalist for
the National Book Award
"If Alan Furst and Edmund White were ever to collaborate, the
result would be something as wonderful as Stray Dog Winter. Written
with beautiful style and frightening intrigue, David Francis's new
novel is a genuine cold war thriller, and a work of art." —David
Ebershoff, author of The 19th Wife and The Danish Girl
"Mysterious, intense and passionate, Stray Dog Winter is a chilling
snapshot of a lost era, a political thriller, and a book of rare
beauty. Like Out Stealing Horses, this story is as stunning word by
word as it is in its rich entirety. Not to be missed." —Andrew Sean
Greer, author of The Story of a Marriage and The Confessions of Max
Tivoli
"This is a wonderful book, the work of a full–fledged talent who
deserves to be read widely and well." —Darin Strauss, author of
More Than It Hurts You and Chang & Eng
"A literary thriller that melds cold war suspense with startling
sexual intrigue, Stray Dog Winter is a fascinating, genre–bending
mélange of dark state conspiracies and darker family secrets.
Superbly written and profoundly original, Stray Dog Winter is a
smart, provocative page–turner." —Darren Star, writer/producer,
creator of Sex and the City
"This haunting literary thriller moves through a KGB winter
dreamscape with elegance and charged sexuality. Francis is a master
at evoking paranoia, dislocation, sexual longing, a past that
haunts us, and ties that connect and blind us. Shades of Robert
Stone and Graham Greene yet Francis's spare lyric voice is uniquely
his own." – Denise Hamilton, author of The Last Embrace and the Eve
Diamond crime novels
"Stray Dog Winter is the season in which bad things happen to
innocent Australians abroad. This thriller, resonating with deep
emotion, is one of the great finds in Australian literature. David
Francis is a wonderful writer and one to watch closely. His careful
attention to language marks him out as a superb prose stylist and
lyrical storyteller." – Brian Castro, award–winning author of Birds
of Passage and Shanghai Dancing
"In beautiful, exacting strokes, David Francis restores to life a
lost landscape from our recent past, luminously and terrifyingly
evoking a time and place of mistrust, deception and fear. A novel
that combines high literary art with a riveting narrative, Stray
Dog Winter reminds us that there is no more dangerous game than the
search for love."
– Mark Sarvas, author of Harry, Revised, host and editor of The
Elegant Variation
"A dark, chilly thriller. . .Francis makes you feel every dropping
degree. . .Don't ask how it ends. . ." – Lavender Magazine
"David Francis has a surgeon's cold eye and a poet's heart; his
prose is powerful, masterful."
– Samantha Dunn, author of Not by Accident
"Francis' gorgeous prose is passionate and pressure filled. His
masterful writing delivers a rare kind of delicious suspense, the
kind that's only found in the most riveting of novels."
– Yannick Murphy, author of Signed, Matahari and Here They Come
"Moscow, with its icy splendor and bald brutality, is seductively
evoked in the pages of Stray Dog Winter. David Francis has created
a credible, parallel universe in which nobody, particularly those
with whom his protagonist is the most intimate, is what he or she
seems. His hero, Darcy, is vulnerable and unfailingly sympathetic;
an antipodean answer to Arkady Renko." – Gaby Naher, author of The
Truth About My Fathers
"Permeated with a brooding unease, powerfully matched by the
palpable cold of winter in Moscow...sinister, suspenseful and
beautifully written."
– Debra Adelaide, author of The Household Guide to Dying
"A story that creeps up around you and won't let you go. Hauntingly
original and totally compelling. I couldn't put it down." – Jane
Turner, writer and actor
"Stray Dog Winter is a remarkable achievement on many levels, from
the poetic elegance of the prose to the atmospheric setting of the
Russian capital in winter. . .David Francis is a writer of
considerable skill. . .he combines a literary style with a
compelling narrative about love passion and betrayal." —The
Canberra Times
"Stray Dog Winter is a disquietingly well–crafted thriller. .
..indicative of the author's range and authority."– The Melbourne
Age
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