“The hard-drinking, hard-boiled and witty hero, Floyd, would usually be the detective in a [Raymond] Chandler story but here in the “new” Melbourne, post-event, he’s placed in a bubble-like world as a “Seeker”, with more authority than a Chander detective, to seek, locate, apprehend, contain and terminate Deviants.

“Chandler’s heroes have to fight the system to get some resolution and Bergen’s hero is no different. He’s only doing the job to pay his sick wife’s hospital bills, and he never gets to see her. He lives with the nagging fear of being “relocated” but somehow can’t keep his acerbic mouth shout. He’s constantly in trouble with authority, despite being in authority himself. And just as in Chandler’s novels, the hero’s instincts usually turn out to be correct.

“Ultimately however what makes this book a good read is not plot nor form, but observation, wit and dialogue.

“In the background of a wasteland, Bergen makes as many allusions to film as T.S. Eliot made to literature. There’s a useful “Encylopedia Tobacciana” at the end of the novel which you can check out if you’re not sure what a reference is to, and similarly a glossary for the slang contained in the novel. These add to the sense of the quirky, as does the calligraphy in the book itself and the typeset. Chandler could perhaps be scratching his head about some of this, safe up in heaven-dead, but his own writing always struck me as kind of idiosyncratic, and we’re living in different times now, brother. In a modern age of conspiracies and corporate agglomerates, I think he’d be pleased as to where Bergen has taken his legacy…

Read More: http://zouchmagazine.com/tobacco-stained-mountain-goat-a-novel-by-andrez-bergen-and-a-conversation-with-the-writer/

“And then the girl from the Activities was standing before me. You remember her, the one from my recurring dream. The one I murdered, even if I don’t exactly remember the details. She stood before me, a hole the size of a football cut into her stomach, her hands cradling her innards.”

Those are the kind of stark descriptions of the grotesque and fantastic that litter Andrez Bergen’s debut novel. Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat is a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi noir caper that comes on quick and relentless, and doesn’t quit until the last words.

The protagonist, Floyd Maquina, is a messed up guy. Living in Melbourne, Australia (which happens to be the last city on Earth) he hunts Deviant citizens with government sanctioned vigor and a wicked drug and alcohol dependency. There’s violence, humor, and some tugging of heartstrings, but all in all, Bergen manages to keep things light despite a setting of pure bleakness: constant rain, depression, drug addiction. Somehow, among all of the drabness and desolation, Bergen crafts a tale that is full of fun dialogue, quirky idiosyncrasies, imaginative, lively characters, and a relatable world to put it all inside of. The image of Floyd sitting on a cramped train with his head pressed against a rain washed window reflecting bright with neon advertisements still sticks with me.

At the heart of Bergen’s novel is the love affair our author has with popular culture. This book is bursting with nods and homage’s to everything from Humphrey Bogart to Mobile Suit Gundam. At times I thought that his continuous placement of sly cultural references would weigh the narrative down and Bergen’s original thoughts would get lost in the milieu. Not the case. His sensitive placement and explanations of these references binds them firmly to the story and are vital to the reader’s sense of place and feeling. The idea could have gone overboard, but the execution remains poignant. And just in case some things go over your head (example: a tosser cracking foxy with a twist) there is a glossary and an encyclopedia in the back.

Bergen’s style doesn’t coddle the reader. His sometimes informal voice and penchant for showing and not telling require a little extra participation on the reader’s part. The result, though, is a quick but memorable excursion to a unique place that rewards the reader with invigorating style and a very satisfying ending. Check this one out.

EVAN PEARSON @ Verbicide Magazine, 29 Aug. 2011

An expatriate Melburnian, Andrez Bergen’s passion for writing has led to his debut novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. Radhika Chopra spoke with him before his much-anticipated return to Melbourne.

Perhaps the book industry isn’t doing so well, but that hasn’t stopped Andrez Bergen from writing.

The Australian-born expat recently added the title of novelist to his extensive list of achievements. And in true Aussie fashion he says that to be a writer ‘you have to love the written word and the way it interacts with its little mates on the page.’

Living in Tokyo, Japan for the last ten years, this self-described ‘idiosyncratic’ released the book Tobacco Stained Mountain Goat in April, and has achieved what some others may only ever dream.

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