I first became aware of local author Patrick Malborough’s debut novel Nock Loose when it was recommended to me by the owner of a local bookshop. The only problem was that they had already sold all the copies they had.
After searching around other independent bookstores, I finally got my hands on a copy. It was the last one in stock. The book has now been reprinted twice, and fresh copies are back in bookstores. It is a level of success Malborough has been pleasantly surprised by.
The book is set in an alternative version of Western Australia and follows the journey of its central character, Joy. She is a gifted archer, a retired Olympian, and a former stuntwoman. Joy lives in the tiny country town of Bodkins Point, famed for its annual violent medieval festival called Agincourt. In the aftermath of a terrible fire, Joy sets off on a journey of revenge.
Reading Malborough’s book reminded me of the absurd and off-beat writers such as Richard Brautigan who emerged from the post-modernism movement of the 1960s. Malborough shares that writers from that era are among his influences.
“American post-modernists are a guiding light of mine and informed a lot of how I write, and why I write,” Malborough says when we chat about his work. “Guys like Thomas Pynchon. Robert Coover is one that does not get talked about much by people, but he is a big one for me, and Nock Loose is definitely stealing a lot from him. William H. Gass is another example of that kind of thing.
“When I was younger, as a journalist, I used to be a big Hunter S. Thompson fan. I have never touched drugs in my life, but as a prose stylist, I love his rhythms and his energy, and I try to carry that into my work.”
Malborough says it is a literary movement that largely bypassed Australia.
“We never really had post-modernism here. We have had an eternal modernism for like eighty years, and our literature is quiet, dry, and quite staid. It has avoided those American influences, for whatever reason. But for me, those writers have been my heroes.”
The wild, mad ride of Nock Loose encapsulates the Australian experience perfectly.
“It is funny,” Malborough says. “Australian literature takes the opposite route, where it presents an Australia that is tame, slow, and boring. That has never been my experience, especially coming from here. I am definitely obsessed with madcap Australiana and the strangeness of it all, the innate aggression of it all.
“I have been a dweeby little asthmatic my whole life. I have been very frightened of Australian men my whole life, and of the ever-present aura of violence. I like to work that into my writing because it lends itself to the kind of screwball farces that I write.”
While this is the first novel Malborough has had published, he considers it his third or fourth completed work. In 2021, Malborough was a finalist for the prestigious Fogarty Award for his unpublished manuscript A Horse Held at Gunpoint. He describes the book as now being in publishing purgatory.
“It was my big book about Fremantle. It is like a screwball comedy about suicide. It is a little bit too experimental for Australian publishers. I think it is a little bit too funny.”
“I think in novels. I have my whole life. They come out of me very easily in about ten days of writing. They flow out of me more or less fully formed. Then I just have to go through them and iron out all the creases, take some tweezers, and pick out the inconsistencies.”
While J.D. Salinger took over a decade to write The Catcher in the Rye, and E.M. Forster worked on Maurice for several decades, Malborough sits at the other end of the creative timescale.
“That is the power of bipolar for you,” he jokes. “It is a performance-enhancing drug in one thing and one thing only.”
“To write Nock Loose, I had a studio in Fremantle, and I was locked in there for twelve to fourteen hours a day writing. I would write about ten thousand to twelve thousand words each day. I had the idea for the story in my head since 2017. I knew what I wanted to say. I draft novels in my head for several years before I write them down. It is almost like a transcription. I just puke everything out.
“The story and characters are improvised. Sometimes I do not know where it is going. The first draft is an unholy mess, and then I just rewrite it, and rewrite it, and rewrite it until it is mildly intelligible.”
If writers can be categorised as either plotters or pantsers, those who fly by the seat of their pants, there is no doubt where Malborough sits.
“As soon as I try to plot something, it just dies on the vine for me. It loses all energy. I like my novels to surprise me as I am writing them. I think the characters surprise me a lot.”
Malborough is filled with ideas for different stories, all taking place in his alternate version of Perth. He lists off a string of different scenarios, each crazier than the next, all deliciously appealing, and signalling that there are many more works to come from this engaging writer who stands out from the crowd.
Nock Loose is published by Fremantle Press, if you see a copy grab it quickly. They tend to sell out.
