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Stephen Holgate

Goodreads Author

Born

Portland, Oregon

Website

http://www.stephenholgatewrite.com/

Genre

Mystery, Thriller, Historical Fiction

Influences

Everyone I've read. I'm sometimes like a sofa cushion, taking on the s ...more

Member Since

February 2017

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Stephen Holgate is a fifth-generation Oregonian who served for four years as a diplomat with the American Embassy in Morocco. In addition to his other foreign service posts, Mr. Holgate has served as a congressional staffer; headed a committee staff of the Oregon State Senate; managed two electoral campaigns; acted with the national tour of an improvisational theater group; worked as a crew member of a barge on the canals of France; and lived in a tent while working as a gardener in Malibu. Holgate has published several short stories and a successfully produced one-man play, as well as publishing innumerable freelance articles. Tangier is his first novel.

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I was escorted out of a bar in Tangier a few years ago on New Years Eve when I stupidly took a photo and video, which you should not do in bars in Tangier (many people don't want to be seen drinking) - a well dressed man took me by the elbow and showed me the door without saying a word. Classy way to get booted. Did you ever get in trouble in Tangier?

Stephen Holgate First, of all, I'm very sorry to be so slow responding. I'm not very good about negotiating Goodreads, and didn't realize I had questions pending. Tha…moreFirst, of all, I'm very sorry to be so slow responding. I'm not very good about negotiating Goodreads, and didn't realize I had questions pending. That's a pretty funny story about Tangier, though I suspect it wasn't very funny at the time. I had some interesting times there. I got to meet the author Paul Bowles at his place there. I met a former OSS officer named Gordon Browne, who was in his 90s and had retired to Tangier, where he had been a spy during WWII. Some of the stories, Gordon Sands tells in "Tangier" are ones he told me, including the one about the exploding turds. (If you haven't read my book yet, this isn't much of a spoiler.) As for trouble, I only had the social kind. Twice when I was staying at the American Legation Museum for a couple of nights I brought along a guest. Both times the guests managed to really cheese off the director of the museum. I was terribly embarrassed and I think it ruined my relationship with the director. I still feel bad about it. But I had a diplomatic passport, which can keep you out of a lot of trouble. I was once way out in the countryside in southern Morocco on vacation when a policeman stopped and asked me what I was doing. I explained to him my family and I were seeing the sights. He wanted to take me down to the police station and question me. I don't think he was really suspicious of me, but he didn't want his chief finding out he had spoken to an American diplomat and simply let me go. The background to his behavior, which I didn't know at the time, was that riots had exploded all over the country that day. As in most places, they wanted to blame it on outside agitators. And here I was, the most "outside" guy he could think of, floating around his area. Anyway, I let him know I was a diplomat and made clear he couldn't force me to go with him. He was very polite about it, but very insistent. I told him he was more than welcome to take down my name and my passport number and my license plate. He wasn't very satisfied -- was no doubt afraid that he would still end up in trouble with his chief -- but didn't have much choice but to let me go. I felt a little sorry for him.(less)

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Stephen Holgate I worked with the American Embassy in Rabat a number of years ago and greatly enjoyed living in Morocco, with its wonderful balance of the familiar an…moreI worked with the American Embassy in Rabat a number of years ago and greatly enjoyed living in Morocco, with its wonderful balance of the familiar and the exotic. I found that Casablanca is nothing like the movie Casablanca, but Tangier is. To this day, you can get yourself into a lot of trouble very quickly in Tangier. Part of the inspiration for my story comes from people I met in Tangier. I met a private detective who had come to Tangier to help a family defend its good name after it was accused of having helped the Nazis in World War II. I also met a retired agent of the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, a charming man on whom I partially based one of the characters in the book. He told me how, during the war, Tangier was an open city, controlled by no central government, making it a perfect nest for spies and smugglers and other dubious characters. Another source of my story came from a friend who described how the family of a diplomatic colleague of ours had been torn apart during the war. The colleague's mother, my friend told me, had come to the United States with her young son early in the war, assuming her husband, a French diplomat would soon join them. He never did. It was an intriguing story and the basis of much of the book. The only drawback, I later found, was that the story was totally untrue. These elements rolled around in my mind for several years, changed shape and curled around each other until I had the story I've set down. So, Tangier, is a blend of misremembered stories, untruths and bits of conversation imperfectly recalled. Maybe that's what fiction has always been.(less)

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Stephen Holgate’s books

Average rating: 3.89 · 308 ratings · 89 reviews · 13 distinct works • Similar authors

	Tangier 3.94 avg rating — 176 ratings — published 2017 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Madagascar 3.41 avg rating — 58 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	To Live and Die in the Floating World 4.07 avg rating — 28 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Promise to Die For 3.95 avg rating — 21 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sri Lanka: A Novel 4.26 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2020 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Goddess and Martin Dayson: A Novel 4.67 avg rating — 6 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cellular and Molecular Targets in Allergy and Clinical Immunology: Proceedings of the 26th Symposium of the Collegium Internationale Allergologicum 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2007	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Non-biological Particles and Health 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Su guía del asma 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Astemizole 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Stephen Holgate's Blog

Release of "To Live and Die in the Floating World"

Hi, Friends – My latest crime against literature has been released this month by Blank Slate Publishing, an imprint of Amphorae Publishing Group.

“To Live and Die in the Floating World” is a suspense/thriller that harkens back to my days as crew member on a small tourist barge in Burgundy. While talking to the skipper one day, he told me a story about a group of shady guests they’d once had on boar Read more of this blog post »

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Published on October 28, 2021 11:17 • Tags: burgundy, france, french-canals, mysteries, oregon-author, suspense, thrillers

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Tangier

by Stephen Holgate (Goodreads Author)

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Jun 19, 2017 08:29PM

Quotes by Stephen Holgate (?)

“When everything is permitted, it’s hard to insist anything is wrong.”
― Stephen Holgate, Tangier

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“Tall bookshelves lined the high-ceilinged room, filled with hardbound books of varying sizes and shapes, arranged like the notes in”
― Stephen Holgate, Tangier

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Stephen’s Quotes

“This isn't from me, but from Faulkner, and may be the best advice I've seen for any writer.

"(Write of) the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.”
― William Faulkner

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