The Sounds

A missing couple recalled in snatches of conversation. An abstract painter who goes on the road in search of new directions. A crypto trader discovers his last friend has become difficult to see. A mother who won't let go of her children. A psychic photographer who captures images of the dead. A crime scene investigator watches people come and go. Six stories by Chad Taylor, compiled for the first time, share themes of transience, dreamlike intimacy and loss.
New Zealand writer Chad Taylor is the author of Blue Hotel, Departure Lounge, Electric, Shirker, Heaven, Pack of Lies and The Church of John Coltrane, and the short story collection The Man Who Wasn't Feeling Himself. He was awarded the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship and the Auckland University Literary Fellowship. Heaven was made into a feature film and his novels and stories are in translation. He wrote the movie Realiti which was selected for Fantastic Fest. Blue Hotel was a finalist in the Ngaio Marsh Awards

Chad Taylor is the author of the novels Departure Lounge, Electric, Shirker, Heaven, Pack of Lies, and The Church of John Coltrane. He was awarded the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship in 2001 and the Auckland University Literary Fellowship in 2003. Heaven was made into a feature film, and his novels and short stories have been translated into several languages.
Chad Taylor's latest novel is Blue Hotel.
The New Zealand Listener named Blue Hotel as one of its Best Books of 2022: the "long-awaited return by Taylor is a dark and funny tale set in 1980s Auckland that veers from BDSM dungeons to corporate raider offices."
– "Full of depth, striking characters, sparkling writing, and a rich sense of time and place" Craig Sisterson, Crimewatch
– "Blue Hotel is darkest crime noir. It takes place in old fashioned newsrooms, questionable newsagencies, seedy bars, S&M clubs and cars. It's as New Zealand-as, but it's not." – Karen Chisholm, AustCrimeFiction
BIOGRAPHY
Chad Taylor's first published fiction appeared in Other Voices: New Writers and Writing in New Zealand, Sport and Landfall. His debut novel PACK OF LIES (1993) was published in Germany as Lügenspiele. His second novel HEAVEN (1994) was made into feature film produced by Sue Rogers and directed by Scott Reynolds.
Read NZ describes Chad Taylor as "a writer of contemporary short and long fiction. His novels and short stories often focus on urban transience and the shifting realities of the modern city. Unreliable or unattractive narrators are common in his writing which often deviates from the premises of genres such as futuristic fantasy, murder mystery and romance triangle. His work has a strong visual quality and often employs filmic devices and structures."
The 1999 entry for the Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature describes him as "a writer of uncompromisingly contemporary fictions of transience and shifting realities in the modern city. Born and educated in Auckland, where his work is largely set, he graduated BFA at Elam and has carried that interest into the strong visual quality of his writing... The fictions often work on the edge of such conventions as the murder story ('No Sun, No Rain'), futuristic fantasy ('Somewhere in the 21st Century') or romance triangle (Pack of Lies, 'Calling Doctor Dollywell'), often through unreliable or unattractive narrators... As these literary norms are subverted, perceptions of reality and i...