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Smoking Poppy
Oh that Charlie of mine, how I wanted her back. Dan Innes hasn't seen his daughter for two years. Now he's been delivered shattering news from the British Embassy in the light of his life has been arrested as a drug smuggler, languishing in wait of a probable death sentence in a hellish Chiang Mai jail. Angry and terrified, seething with guilt, reprimands, and questions, he leaves London for Thailand, prepared to fight for his estranged daughter's freedom. But Dan's visit to the jail is inconclusive, and soon he is following the faintest of trails up in the lawless mountain region close to the border with Myanmar, where opium grows abundantly and the dangers of nature are second only to that of man. It's a place where the fearless and the foolish wander -- and disappear forever. To find Charlie, Dan must retrace her steps -- and brave the same traps that swallowed her. Here he will discover his own limits, his own temptations, as he drifts across the strange tides of an even stranger land, on a terrifying mission of self-discovery, blind faith, and salvation. As þuidly ecstatic as a drug, pulsating with a vivid, hothouse atmosphere, Smoking Poppy takes readers on a hallucinatory -- sometimes funny, sometimes horrifying -- journey across an enthralling, suspense-charged landscape. Graham Joyce, who brilliantly explored the far reaches of human obsession in his acclaimed thriller Indigo, goes further to prove that such obsession has no boundaries, no taboos, and -- the deeper one gets -- no exit.
271 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
14 people are currently reading
718 people want to read
About the author
Graham Joyce
73 books570 followersGraham Joyce (22 October 1954 – 9 September 2014) was an English writer of speculative fiction and the recipient of numerous awards for both his novels and short stories.
After receiving a B.Ed. from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 and a M.A. from the University of Leicester in 1980. Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer.
Graham Joyce resided in Leicester with his wife, Suzanne Johnsen, and their two children, Joseph and Ella. He taught Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University from 1996 until his death, and was made a Reader in Creative Writing.
Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013.
After receiving a B.Ed. from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 and a M.A. from the University of Leicester in 1980. Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer.
Graham Joyce resided in Leicester with his wife, Suzanne Johnsen, and their two children, Joseph and Ella. He taught Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University from 1996 until his death, and was made a Reader in Creative Writing.
Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013.
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April 20, 2019
”As for the opium, I’d seen how good it was, how damnably selfishly good. I liked it. It was all about me and nobody else. It was about my insignificant little cry, my pathetic bleat against the uproar of life, and my little bleat, so it seemed to me, was as important as hers or anyone else’s. I could see how luxurious it was to sink into a magnificent selfishness like that, one which had no bottom, and through which you could go on falling and falling and falling. You could be asked to undertake the rewiring of hell and it would seem like nice work.”
If you knew Danny Innes, you would think nothing was wrong with his life. He goes to work, fixing the electrical problems he is asked to fix. He shows up every week to play team Trivial Pursuit. It looks like everything about his life is as Jim Dandy as it was two weeks ago or six months ago or three years ago.
What you might not know is that he is estranged from his wife. You might not know that his son has given himself over to fundamentalist Christianity, and his daughter has become a drug addict. Danny couldn’t decide which was a bigger failure, the Christianity or the drugs. The one thing he doesn’t really put together is that both his kids are trying to escape their lives. They are just using different methods.
”I’ve been a selfish child pretending to be a man. I allowed fatherhood to become a creeping cataract, preventing me from seeing the changing needs of those around me. But I didn’t know then what I know now. That you have to let them pluck from your heart with bruising fingers great, sparkling, golden resinous chunks of love, and never ask under what moon they smoke it or where they spill it.”
Sounds painful, doesn’t it? When you first meet Danny, he will not be this philosophical or wise about his relationship with his kids. Those realizations come after the painful, spiritual journey of self-discovery he is about to depart upon. He might have left to find a child, but he just might find himself.
If you had told Danny that he was going to be in a hut in Thailand, well maybe Thailand (when you get that deep in the jungle, borders become blurred, smoking one opium pipe after another, making deals with a posh speaking drug dealer who is a jokester one minute and a homicidal maniac the next, and trying to discover what he truly believes about what it means to be alive), he would have told you that you had fallen off your cracker.
It all begins with a call from his wife telling him that Charlotte, Charlie, has been arrested on drug charges in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Danny, needless to say, is not that impressed with the expensive Oxford education he paid for. She was a sweet child before he sent her among those drugged out, body piercing, tattooing, whoring, hoards of Oxfordians not worth the space they occupy in this world.
We won’t talk about the jealousy. Let’s let Danny figure that out on his own.
Danny enlists the aid of his son Phil to go to Thailand with him. He doesn’t know if he can stand to spend that much time with him without bludgeoning him to death with his own Bible. Phil, knowing this, strategically brings only a hand sized Bible that might sting when Danny slaps him about the face with it, but it won’t crush his skull. Danny’s friend Mick volunteers to come with him, which if weighed on a scale of helpfulness might tilt towards hinderance.
Armed with books by Thomas De Quincey, Rimbaud, Yeats, and Coleridge, all consumers of vast quantities of opium, Danny heads to Thailand. I have to laugh about his reading selections. I’m not surprised when he discovers that the books are mostly just a lot of fucking, nonsensical poetry. Well, he does garner some insights from the Opium Eater, which is in itself annoying because he doesn’t even EAT THE OPIUM.
Anyway, moving on.
There are some wonderful passages about the strange, wild beauty of the jungles of Thailand. ”The vegetation became a thick, dry and scrubby tangle fighting for growth between spindly grey tree trunks of astonishing height, canopy upon canopy. The trees were festooned with parched, creeping vines, sometimes so defoliated that the vines looked like trailing masses of electrical cable. Unlike the trees at home, there were no low branches, and where the tree did sprout it was with large papery leaves of greens, russets and reds. The dusty path ahead was sprinkled with huge, crinkly desiccated leaves. The ground breathed back at us, dry and hot.”
The money line, of course, is that last sentence. That is where I feel the weight of a backpack, the cloying heat, the cry of some strange bird from the trees above, and a dryness in my throat that only cold, clear water could cut. I’m not just reading about Thailand anymore...I am there.
So I reach the end of this novel and find myself staring in the mirror at the boiled out eyes, gaunt features, and emaciated form of Danny Innes and realize that I’m looking at myself. I can’t find Nabao, who is supposed to be handing me my next pipe. I’m terrorized by cosmic thoughts. I look over my shoulder and see Joseph Conrad, a moon beamed, living, breathing, block print, at the tiller guiding my life through the weeds of a narrowing river. It is hard to see that there is any peace achieved with higher understanding. My nerves are strung tighter than Appalachian banjo strings. My brain is slipping gears like a 1957 Chevy, leaking oil, sputtering, held together with rusted wire and duct tape.
I’d talk to you about the spirits, but I think I finally shook them. Walk softly and carry a big spirit stick, I always say.
Thank goodness this is fiction. People always say to me fiction isn’t real. Fiction isn’t REAL! Fiction ISN’T REAL! FICTION ISN’T REAL!
Until it is.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
If you knew Danny Innes, you would think nothing was wrong with his life. He goes to work, fixing the electrical problems he is asked to fix. He shows up every week to play team Trivial Pursuit. It looks like everything about his life is as Jim Dandy as it was two weeks ago or six months ago or three years ago.
What you might not know is that he is estranged from his wife. You might not know that his son has given himself over to fundamentalist Christianity, and his daughter has become a drug addict. Danny couldn’t decide which was a bigger failure, the Christianity or the drugs. The one thing he doesn’t really put together is that both his kids are trying to escape their lives. They are just using different methods.
”I’ve been a selfish child pretending to be a man. I allowed fatherhood to become a creeping cataract, preventing me from seeing the changing needs of those around me. But I didn’t know then what I know now. That you have to let them pluck from your heart with bruising fingers great, sparkling, golden resinous chunks of love, and never ask under what moon they smoke it or where they spill it.”
Sounds painful, doesn’t it? When you first meet Danny, he will not be this philosophical or wise about his relationship with his kids. Those realizations come after the painful, spiritual journey of self-discovery he is about to depart upon. He might have left to find a child, but he just might find himself.
If you had told Danny that he was going to be in a hut in Thailand, well maybe Thailand (when you get that deep in the jungle, borders become blurred, smoking one opium pipe after another, making deals with a posh speaking drug dealer who is a jokester one minute and a homicidal maniac the next, and trying to discover what he truly believes about what it means to be alive), he would have told you that you had fallen off your cracker.
It all begins with a call from his wife telling him that Charlotte, Charlie, has been arrested on drug charges in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Danny, needless to say, is not that impressed with the expensive Oxford education he paid for. She was a sweet child before he sent her among those drugged out, body piercing, tattooing, whoring, hoards of Oxfordians not worth the space they occupy in this world.
We won’t talk about the jealousy. Let’s let Danny figure that out on his own.
Danny enlists the aid of his son Phil to go to Thailand with him. He doesn’t know if he can stand to spend that much time with him without bludgeoning him to death with his own Bible. Phil, knowing this, strategically brings only a hand sized Bible that might sting when Danny slaps him about the face with it, but it won’t crush his skull. Danny’s friend Mick volunteers to come with him, which if weighed on a scale of helpfulness might tilt towards hinderance.
Armed with books by Thomas De Quincey, Rimbaud, Yeats, and Coleridge, all consumers of vast quantities of opium, Danny heads to Thailand. I have to laugh about his reading selections. I’m not surprised when he discovers that the books are mostly just a lot of fucking, nonsensical poetry. Well, he does garner some insights from the Opium Eater, which is in itself annoying because he doesn’t even EAT THE OPIUM.
Anyway, moving on.
There are some wonderful passages about the strange, wild beauty of the jungles of Thailand. ”The vegetation became a thick, dry and scrubby tangle fighting for growth between spindly grey tree trunks of astonishing height, canopy upon canopy. The trees were festooned with parched, creeping vines, sometimes so defoliated that the vines looked like trailing masses of electrical cable. Unlike the trees at home, there were no low branches, and where the tree did sprout it was with large papery leaves of greens, russets and reds. The dusty path ahead was sprinkled with huge, crinkly desiccated leaves. The ground breathed back at us, dry and hot.”
The money line, of course, is that last sentence. That is where I feel the weight of a backpack, the cloying heat, the cry of some strange bird from the trees above, and a dryness in my throat that only cold, clear water could cut. I’m not just reading about Thailand anymore...I am there.
So I reach the end of this novel and find myself staring in the mirror at the boiled out eyes, gaunt features, and emaciated form of Danny Innes and realize that I’m looking at myself. I can’t find Nabao, who is supposed to be handing me my next pipe. I’m terrorized by cosmic thoughts. I look over my shoulder and see Joseph Conrad, a moon beamed, living, breathing, block print, at the tiller guiding my life through the weeds of a narrowing river. It is hard to see that there is any peace achieved with higher understanding. My nerves are strung tighter than Appalachian banjo strings. My brain is slipping gears like a 1957 Chevy, leaking oil, sputtering, held together with rusted wire and duct tape.
I’d talk to you about the spirits, but I think I finally shook them. Walk softly and carry a big spirit stick, I always say.
Thank goodness this is fiction. People always say to me fiction isn’t real. Fiction isn’t REAL! Fiction ISN’T REAL! FICTION ISN’T REAL!
Until it is.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
February 17, 2022
Oh! just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for 'the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel,' bringest an assuaging balm.
The quote above is not by Graham Joyce, and it doesn’t appear in the present novel, but it has a bearing on the events narrated. Danny Innes, our first person narrator, is not a drug addict nor had he experienced with the juice of the poppy as the novel starts. But he will journey far from his home in Leicester, chasing ghosts and regrets and a wayward daughter all the way to the jungles at the border between Thailand and Myanmar. And he will carry in his backpack a copy of “Confessions of an Opium Eater” by Thomas De Quincey, where those words can be found.
Danny is a ‘sparks’, a self-employed blue-collar doing home repair and maintenance, mostly electrical in nature. One ordinary day, Danny receives a phone call informing him that his daughter Charlie is imprisoned in a northern town in Thailand for drug smuggling, something punishable by death in that particular country.
Now, Danny is a loving parent who worships the memories of the early days of parenting in lyrical prose. How come then that Danny is living alone in an unfurnished room, separated from his wife, exasperated by his son and not aware of the whereabouts of his beloved Charlie for the last couple of years? Methinks Danny would be better helped by looking in a mirror than blaming others for his problems.
Three years older than Charlie, Phil had studied biology at Durham University, and it was while he was working with biotoxins that he’s contracted Christian Fundamentalism. I don’t know how a scientist can claim to believe that every word of the Bible is true, but we had exhausted that argument years back.
Danny has such a tight lid over his emotions that he hardly opens his mouth about his personal life even to his pub-crawling buddies, who meet weekly for trivia games or snooker. There’s a serious disconnect at the start of the novel between the professions of parental love and the reality of his dysfunctional family life. Yet there is no doubt in Danny that he needs to do something to help his wayward daughter. Help comes from unexpected directions, as first his buddy Mick and later his son Phil offer to accompany Danny to Chiang Mai .
Before departure, Danny tries to crib some info on the drugs that have ruined his daughter, ignoring for now any inklings that he may have played a part in her downfall.
I’m a voracious reader of science fiction, fantasy, horror, crime or anything with a decent story: if it hasn’t got a good story I can’t be bothered. [...]
I used books the way some people use alcohol, to obliterate the noise of the outside world.
Danny is a smart guy. He didn’t go to any fancy university, and he actually blames Oxford and Durham for alienating his two children, but his team usually wins those Trivia nights at the pub. Danny is well read and well informed [and a hell of a writer, if I may say so, based on his narrative skill] but attempts to understand the poetry of Romantics who allegedly wrote under the influence of drugs are not helping. Baudelaire is equally obscure, and De Quincey a hard and pointless slog. Maybe a local hippie might be more familiar with the subject?
‘Imagine you are an alien colonising the planet. First disguise yourself as a non-aggressive plant. Secondly, make yourself useful; seductive and addictive to the planet’s dominant species, who will then do all the heavy spade-work, planting you, cultivating you, exporting you, taking risks for you, even fighting each other for you. Gradually you increase your control around the world. Get it? You’ve got time. You can wait. This is easy.’
Easy? This isn’t exactly what Danny wanted to hear. It merely confirms his suspicions that drugs mess with your mind. But maybe this long-haired fellow knows something about Thailand? He says he has actually visited the place.
‘It comes back at you,’ he told me. ‘Like your dreams. It’s whatever you want, or don’t want. Drugs? They’ve got everything. Religion? The ground exudes spirituality. Sex? You can have three young girls worshipping your prick if that’s what you want.’
He took a quiet drag on his cigarette.
‘Danny, it’s a cracked mirror. No, that’s wrong, it’s the other side of a cracked mirror, the silver-metal amalgam-side of a cracked mirror, and you can’t always get back.’
Danny, Mick and Phil step through the looking glass and arrive in a world crazier to their British eyes than anything Lewis Carroll might have imagined. Chiang Mai is not a bad city, with picturesque Buddhist temples, friendly girls trying to lure you in bars and colourful food stalls on every corner, but the three amigos are not there as tourists. And Charlie is not where she was supposed to be. An even wilder trip is ahead of them.
Stepping from the capsule of the air-conditioned hotel was like being plunged into a glinting tropical aquarium; people as ornate fish gliding by in fluid ecstasy, breasting strange tides, bumping up against the coral of the bewildering street commerce. Even the air seemed like fishtank water in need of a change.
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The novel really picks up for me as Danny and his two partners barely get accustomed to the cultural shock of an Asian city and they have to dive deeper into the unknown, heading for the mountainous border between Thailand and Myanmar, the infamous Golden Triangle where most of the world’s heroin originates. An European young woman has allegedly been spotted in one of the isolated villages where the poppy fields are the only source of income for the local tribes, where government raids are burning what fields they manage to identify and where armed guerillas patrol and are financed with the proceeds from smuggling.
‘We’ve arrived in hell,’ said Phil. ‘Have you noticed how red the earth is here? How red it is. It’s not easy to get out of hell. No, not easy at all. Did any of you know that?’
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Graham Joyce is one of the authors who deserves more exposure. I consider him underrated despite his numerous nominations and awards. I believe obscurity is in part due to his refusal to be pigeon-holed in a genre category. He is interested in spirits and the supernatural, but often as a tool to explore the inner workings of a mind facing adversity. ‘Smoking Poppy’ is one of those hard-to-pin-down genre crossovers: obviously an action thriller in an exotic location, but the true quest is one of self-discovery for Danny. The title is double edged: the rhymes and reasons for drug use and its effects on the psyche and on those around the user, but also the breaking out of barriers of understanding by stepping outside your comfort zone. It turned out that the crazy De Quincey was on to something in the end.
De Quincey met the Dark Interpreter when he was helplessly watching his own child crying in pain over some childhood illness. The next day, he noted that his child had made a spurt in its powers of observation and behaviour. In other words, it had learned through suffering, and De Quincey himself had learned through his suffering. The dark had been interpreted .
The emancipation of Danny and his friends is hard won in an exorcising and almost deadly ceremony performed by the ‘savage’ tribesmen in the middle of the jungle with ‘help’ from the tears of a wildflower. I am being myself deliberately obscure about the actual details of the novel, hoping potential readers will enjoy both the thriller part of the novel and the spiritual trip.
I don’t really care for any kind of creed. Religion is like the dope, which is like the whisky, which is like the stupid television. Same f_ck of a different colour. But I do believe in spirits. In ghosts. Only now I know what they are. They are not the dead. They do not come from an afterlife. They move about us. They live on our shoulders, or at our right or left hand, and they are created by our actions. I was followed all the way by one small spirit. It practically had to tug me by the sleeve that day in the poppy field before I would acknowledge it. It was the crying spirit of an absence of core in my life.
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As usual, Joyce surpassed my expectations with beautiful prose and insightful exploration of parents and children growing apart yet needing to re-connect.
I need to check out what other books by him I have missed.
October 8, 2021
Oct 4, 230pm ~~ Review asap.
Oct 5, 10pm ~~ With a birthdate of October 22, Graham Joyce was my Literary Birthday author for this month. I had read The Facts Of Life already, once pre GR and then again in 2020. The reread inspired a trip to Thriftbooks for a couple of other titles. then they sat on the shelf for a bit, until I started planning my birthday challenge list and now here we are. This is my official challenge title, but as of 4 Oct I started on another Joyce title, Some Kind Of Fairy Tale.
But back to Smoking Poppy. What a page turner this was! Dan Innes had recently separated from his wife and was trying to put together a piece of furniture for his new apartment when she calls with news from the British Embassy in Bangkok Thailand. Their daughter Charlie (Charlotte) is in prison for drug smuggling!
Charlie changed once she went to Oxford. She and Dan had fights, and after one she quit coming home for the holidays, quit communicating with Dan completely. And now here she has turned up in prison with the possibility of spending the rest of her life there or even being executed.
What should Dan do? What would any father do? Hop on the first plane and go see his daughter, of course. Do whatever he is able to do. Friend Mick goes along and so does Dan's son Phil. Mick is mostly welcome, Phil is barely tolerated. But they all get to Thailand and visit the prison, finally getting in to see Charlie.
But this is where everything really begins to happen, because....well, just trust me about this. We all end up in the jungle in a different type of prison, and Dan has to face events that feel more than a little beyond his control, as does each member of the group.
How will each person decide their destiny?
This book is nearly impossible to put down. It makes two home runs from this author and I can tell SKOFT is on its way out of the ballpark too. I now will have to try not to rush off to order more Graham Joyce books. Repeat after me: No More Room On The Shelves. No More Room On The Shelves. Really Really No More Room On The Shelves.
Well, we shall see if that works. lol
Oct 5, 10pm ~~ With a birthdate of October 22, Graham Joyce was my Literary Birthday author for this month. I had read The Facts Of Life already, once pre GR and then again in 2020. The reread inspired a trip to Thriftbooks for a couple of other titles. then they sat on the shelf for a bit, until I started planning my birthday challenge list and now here we are. This is my official challenge title, but as of 4 Oct I started on another Joyce title, Some Kind Of Fairy Tale.
But back to Smoking Poppy. What a page turner this was! Dan Innes had recently separated from his wife and was trying to put together a piece of furniture for his new apartment when she calls with news from the British Embassy in Bangkok Thailand. Their daughter Charlie (Charlotte) is in prison for drug smuggling!
Charlie changed once she went to Oxford. She and Dan had fights, and after one she quit coming home for the holidays, quit communicating with Dan completely. And now here she has turned up in prison with the possibility of spending the rest of her life there or even being executed.
What should Dan do? What would any father do? Hop on the first plane and go see his daughter, of course. Do whatever he is able to do. Friend Mick goes along and so does Dan's son Phil. Mick is mostly welcome, Phil is barely tolerated. But they all get to Thailand and visit the prison, finally getting in to see Charlie.
But this is where everything really begins to happen, because....well, just trust me about this. We all end up in the jungle in a different type of prison, and Dan has to face events that feel more than a little beyond his control, as does each member of the group.
How will each person decide their destiny?
This book is nearly impossible to put down. It makes two home runs from this author and I can tell SKOFT is on its way out of the ballpark too. I now will have to try not to rush off to order more Graham Joyce books. Repeat after me: No More Room On The Shelves. No More Room On The Shelves. Really Really No More Room On The Shelves.
Well, we shall see if that works. lol
May 4, 2014
I still feel a little hot and sweaty, stinky, clothes are stained and dirty, mosquito bites both old and new all over my body, and I’m very relieved to leave the jungles of Thailand still in one piece. Graham Joyce, or at least the protagonist in this story, is a bit of a red neck (what do we call red necks from England?) know it all, emotionally closed guy who has lost any meaningful connection to his two kids who are in their twenties, one a born again Christian (boy how that bothers our hero, Dan), the other, the daughter that he loved dearly, now in prison in Northern Thailand for drug smuggling.
The story of the struggle and sacrifices to find her is well told, but to me, it’s really a story of how we as adult parents connect to our friends and family, and especially to our own children. It can be a difficult relationship, especially as kids enter into their teens and start thinking independently and often go in directions that parents aren’t stoked about.
Sometimes the connection is brutally tested and it’s the parent who must yield and accept more than the child. The story convincingly tests the limits of the parental love and in this setting, in the hidden Poppy Fields in remote jungle areas and in huts far away from any normal civilization, that the healing of these relationships can sometimes occur. Are you ready to go way outside of your normal limits and boundaries, do things you’ve always hated, eat humble pie, and do what it takes to save your child, the one who has abandoned you and disliked you? Maybe not.
It’s a macho story, but with tears, a story of the jungle and our privileged way of life, but with some interesting insights into tribal ways and customs.
Give it a shot, I think you’ll like it.
The story of the struggle and sacrifices to find her is well told, but to me, it’s really a story of how we as adult parents connect to our friends and family, and especially to our own children. It can be a difficult relationship, especially as kids enter into their teens and start thinking independently and often go in directions that parents aren’t stoked about.
Sometimes the connection is brutally tested and it’s the parent who must yield and accept more than the child. The story convincingly tests the limits of the parental love and in this setting, in the hidden Poppy Fields in remote jungle areas and in huts far away from any normal civilization, that the healing of these relationships can sometimes occur. Are you ready to go way outside of your normal limits and boundaries, do things you’ve always hated, eat humble pie, and do what it takes to save your child, the one who has abandoned you and disliked you? Maybe not.
It’s a macho story, but with tears, a story of the jungle and our privileged way of life, but with some interesting insights into tribal ways and customs.
Give it a shot, I think you’ll like it.
January 26, 2014
This is my second book this month by this author. I am already planning on reading more. I hadn't even heard of him before coming across Some Kind Of Fairy Tale. These books were completely different but I enjoyed both. I felt pretty sure I was going to like this one after reading the author's note in the beginning. I could relate to his thoughts on his love for his children.
This one for me was scary in its subject matter. Receiving a call that his daughter (who is just out of Oxford) is in a Thailand jail on a drug smuggling charge, this father goes after her. He has some unlikely traveling companions in his drinking buddy and his Christian fundamentalist son. He has recently separated from his wife and has been basically estranged from his children for the last couple years.
I hated to put this book down after I started. It felt very real. I enjoyed the characters and appreciated their growth throughout. Difficult to read at times I felt rewarded at the end. A story of family and friendship and life's unexpected turns. A story about love, especially between parents and children and how it changes over time but doesn't go away. A powerful and moving read.
This one for me was scary in its subject matter. Receiving a call that his daughter (who is just out of Oxford) is in a Thailand jail on a drug smuggling charge, this father goes after her. He has some unlikely traveling companions in his drinking buddy and his Christian fundamentalist son. He has recently separated from his wife and has been basically estranged from his children for the last couple years.
I hated to put this book down after I started. It felt very real. I enjoyed the characters and appreciated their growth throughout. Difficult to read at times I felt rewarded at the end. A story of family and friendship and life's unexpected turns. A story about love, especially between parents and children and how it changes over time but doesn't go away. A powerful and moving read.
February 28, 2018
For me, this book had it all....an exciting, fast paced story, that whilst being both an adventure and a mystery, was peopled by ordinary everyday characters who were flawed with all the usual human failings, but who magnificently rose to the occasion when someone they loved was in danger.
This was a novel about the fierce and unquestionable love of a parent for their child, no matter how difficult that child has been.....it's also about the love of an adult son for a less than perfect Father, and about the true meaning of friendship, displayed by my favourite character, Mick.....and it was about self discovery, and seeing ourselves and our flaws....perhaps for the first time....as others see us.
I loved every page of this book....there wasn't one word too many....its easy to describe a book as un- put- downable, but, for me, this one truly was.
This was a novel about the fierce and unquestionable love of a parent for their child, no matter how difficult that child has been.....it's also about the love of an adult son for a less than perfect Father, and about the true meaning of friendship, displayed by my favourite character, Mick.....and it was about self discovery, and seeing ourselves and our flaws....perhaps for the first time....as others see us.
I loved every page of this book....there wasn't one word too many....its easy to describe a book as un- put- downable, but, for me, this one truly was.
April 2, 2019
I was transported to another place. This is about love. What we think we know and what is actually is. What a journey , Dan, Mick and Paul went on. I was glad to see them come out mostly whole. Maybe even a little better. I could not put this down. I simply immersed myself in the story. I was not expecting to go to the places we did and to do the the things we did. Mr. Joyce is was sure amazing visiting with you.
June 24, 2008
Smoking Poppy tells the story of Danny Innes, who one day gets a phone call saying that his daughter Charlie has been arrested in Thailand. It seems that she's now imprisoned and may be facing the death penalty. Even though Charlie and Danny have been somewhat estranged for a while now (since Charlie went off to Oxford, it seems), Danny is off to see what he can do. He is accompanied by a friend, Mick, and his son Phil, who has channeled his alienation from his father into religious zealotry. Their arrival at the prison only brings disappointment...it seems that the woman being held there isn't his daughter after all; she's stolen Charlie's passport. Rumors say that Charlie trekked into the opium fields...and that's really where the story takes off.
I won't say more, because it would spoil the read for anyone who may be interested, but Smoking Poppy was very well done. All of the characters were realistically written, the setting was exotic and real enough that you could picture yourself there. I couldn't put it down once I started.
I wouldn't advise this for people who are happy when writers spell everything out neatly and cleanly; this is a book that requires reader participation and lots of thought.
Overall, a fantastic story and one I won't soon forget.
I won't say more, because it would spoil the read for anyone who may be interested, but Smoking Poppy was very well done. All of the characters were realistically written, the setting was exotic and real enough that you could picture yourself there. I couldn't put it down once I started.
I wouldn't advise this for people who are happy when writers spell everything out neatly and cleanly; this is a book that requires reader participation and lots of thought.
Overall, a fantastic story and one I won't soon forget.
October 4, 2012
A British father gets a phone call that his 20-something daughter is incarcerated in a jail in Thailand for smuggling dope. With a drinking buddy and his son, he rushes to Thailand, only to find that the girl incarcerated is not his daughter, but has his daughter's passport. They embark on an arduous journey into the jungles near the border with Myanmar, where drug lords control villages in the cultivation of poppies and finding his daughter is only the beginning of their harrowing experience.
I was captivated by this story and its well-wrought characters, impressed by the vivid writing, and intrigued at the depth of insight and sensitivity the author displayed for the complex relationship between parents and their grown children, especially when, as in this book, they are very different from each other. He captured well the fierceness parents feel in wanting to protect their children, regardless of their age or circumstances. He also beautifully conveyed the lessons learned by the protagonist: that loving your children is not contingent on understanding them or molding them into your own image and that friendship and loyalty can come in strange packages. Powerful.
I'll definitely be reading more Graham Joyce.
I was captivated by this story and its well-wrought characters, impressed by the vivid writing, and intrigued at the depth of insight and sensitivity the author displayed for the complex relationship between parents and their grown children, especially when, as in this book, they are very different from each other. He captured well the fierceness parents feel in wanting to protect their children, regardless of their age or circumstances. He also beautifully conveyed the lessons learned by the protagonist: that loving your children is not contingent on understanding them or molding them into your own image and that friendship and loyalty can come in strange packages. Powerful.
I'll definitely be reading more Graham Joyce.
January 10, 2013
This was such an enjoyable read that I actually got angry whenever anyone interrupted my reading of it. I flew through the pages like I used to years ago. It’s easy to fall out of love with reading when you write. I think this is because you develop such a hyper-critical eye – both for your own work and everyone else’s.
But Joyce’s style and first person narration built swiftly from a trickle to a torrent and the momentum carried me effortlessly to the book’s conclusion. A bit like the raft ride towards the end of the story.
The switch from the ordinary world to the extraordinary world was just brilliant in this. Danny, a recently separated electrician has little more than double-sockets, quiz-night and whisky to look forward to. Estranged by his children, it’s not looking good for Danny and things get worse when the foreign office phones to tell him his daughter has been caught smuggling heroin into Thailand. Now in Chiang Mai jail, she may face the death penalty. What else can Danny do but saddle up and head for Thailand to save his child?
A richly told trek into the heroin jungles of the Far East, Smoking Poppy manages to be funny, frightening, thrilling and heart-warming all at the same time. It rekindled my desire to read for pleasure.
But Joyce’s style and first person narration built swiftly from a trickle to a torrent and the momentum carried me effortlessly to the book’s conclusion. A bit like the raft ride towards the end of the story.
The switch from the ordinary world to the extraordinary world was just brilliant in this. Danny, a recently separated electrician has little more than double-sockets, quiz-night and whisky to look forward to. Estranged by his children, it’s not looking good for Danny and things get worse when the foreign office phones to tell him his daughter has been caught smuggling heroin into Thailand. Now in Chiang Mai jail, she may face the death penalty. What else can Danny do but saddle up and head for Thailand to save his child?
A richly told trek into the heroin jungles of the Far East, Smoking Poppy manages to be funny, frightening, thrilling and heart-warming all at the same time. It rekindled my desire to read for pleasure.
April 5, 2021
Like another reader, I head only ready one Graham Joyce book before this, “Some Kind Of Fairy Tale”, but I will be reading more now. This is a great story all about love of different forms. The key characters are beautifully fleshed out as the story develops and we gradually learn more and more about them. There is lots of humour but at its heart the novel is serious and thought provoking. Lots of images formed by this book will stay with me for a long while.
November 26, 2015
When Daniel's Oxford-educated daughter ends up in a Thai prison on drug charges, he and his motley crew of companions head to Asia to release her. From there, they are sent on a wild opium chase through the jungles of Thailand, learning (the hard way) about drugs, warlords and addiction.
The first half of the novel kept me amused as perpetually-negative Dan leaves his pathetic excuse for life in search of his once doted-upon daughter. For the first time in years, his eyes are opened to the world beyond his pub-night quizzes and he begins to understand that he does not have all the answers. But, by the second half, I grew tired of these bumbling, unlikable characters who endlessly interfere with the local villagers. Just when the action seemed to be picking up, the plot fell into a opium-like daze and Joyce lost all the momentum that had been building. After all the initial absurdity of Dan, Mick and Phil's interactions, it was a stretch to feel threatened as their situation unraveled. At that point, I couldn't have cared less if they succeeded in their plight or if they were chopped into little bits.
The first half of the novel kept me amused as perpetually-negative Dan leaves his pathetic excuse for life in search of his once doted-upon daughter. For the first time in years, his eyes are opened to the world beyond his pub-night quizzes and he begins to understand that he does not have all the answers. But, by the second half, I grew tired of these bumbling, unlikable characters who endlessly interfere with the local villagers. Just when the action seemed to be picking up, the plot fell into a opium-like daze and Joyce lost all the momentum that had been building. After all the initial absurdity of Dan, Mick and Phil's interactions, it was a stretch to feel threatened as their situation unraveled. At that point, I couldn't have cared less if they succeeded in their plight or if they were chopped into little bits.
January 27, 2013
Dan Innes has serious flaws as a father, husband and friend, the least of which being that he doesn't realize he's flawed. Dan's journey to attempt to locate and then ultimately bring his daughter home from jungles of Thailand is also a journey where he must confront and accept his own imperfections, as well as accepting the imperfections and embracing the strengths of those around him. In reality, this is a coming of age story for a middle-aged guy. It took awhile to realize that it was Dan who was the one with all of the issues, because he's the narrator of the story, so we've only his side of the story at the beginning as he points out the flaws of all the other people around him. I was actually learning about Dan as he was learning about himself. This was a good thing, and a bad thing, because as the book went along, he became a less sympathetic character and could be more than a jerk at times. Nevertheless, I remained interested in the book throughout, and I was glad that I went along for the trip.
September 5, 2013
This book represents a nearly perfect narrative set-up. Curmudgeonly dude whose life is kinda of falling apart in slow motion gets a phone call out of the blue and learns that his estranged daughter is locked up in a Thai prison for smuggling opium, facing a possible life sentence (or worse). Accompanied by a drinking buddy (a kindhearted, somewhat goofy bear of a man), and his tense, evangelical Christian son, he sets off to fight for her freedom. From there, the story twists and it turns. There's a lot of drinking, a lot of smoking, a lot of depravity and transcendence. There's some mystical elements (it would not otherwise be a Graham Joyce novel), but there's also an invigorating dose of hard-boiled jungle adventure story, a'la Indiana Jones or Heart of Darkness. It's just bloody brilliant. It says many beautiful things about parenthood, about love. about what makes a life worth living. It's the sixth Graham Joyce novel that I've read this year, and one of the 2 or 3 best. Certainly one of his most tightly plotted stories...a frenzied joy to read.
December 25, 2011
I loved the beginning of this quirky little book...Danny bit of a louse living alone from his estranged family finds out that his daughter is missing and heads off to the steamy sights of Chiang-Mai in Thailand (or as his friend Mick likes to call it Thighland! in hot persuit)He is accompanied by this best friend Mick and his somewhat aloof and strange son Phil. I thought the scenes in Chiang-Mai were great fun and in particular one incident with Mick bought a big smile to my face...however once we head off to the jungle I felt that not only did our heroes lose their way but the story did also :( For those of you of a certain age ie you were doped out on Jimi Hendrix, Janix Joplin and the glory days of Woodstock then the second half of the book may well appeal to you...I just found it somewhat boring and even though the message in the final few pages is uplifting (but not unexpected) ultimately the book did not deliver and left me somewhat glad when I had finished.
February 11, 2013
Graham Joyce is a great author...
dear lovers of wonderful fiction,
... whose characters come alive. In this novel, Daniel is a father who cannot understand how he has become so estranged from his son Phil, who's become a fundamentalist Christian, and more particularly, his beloved daughter Charlie, about whom he receives news that she is languishing in a Thai prison for smuggling dope. This leads him on an adventure to the heart of poppy country, and into the world were the spirits reside beside us, and must be dealt with, and not ignored as they so often are in the modern world.
Somehow Joyce makes the world of spirit belief come alive without ever violating the modern scientific point of view. He leaves the reader to decide what is true. He is a real master.
kyela,
the silver elves
dear lovers of wonderful fiction,
... whose characters come alive. In this novel, Daniel is a father who cannot understand how he has become so estranged from his son Phil, who's become a fundamentalist Christian, and more particularly, his beloved daughter Charlie, about whom he receives news that she is languishing in a Thai prison for smuggling dope. This leads him on an adventure to the heart of poppy country, and into the world were the spirits reside beside us, and must be dealt with, and not ignored as they so often are in the modern world.
Somehow Joyce makes the world of spirit belief come alive without ever violating the modern scientific point of view. He leaves the reader to decide what is true. He is a real master.
kyela,
the silver elves
May 16, 2023
Smoking Poppy [2001] - ★★★
"I used books the way some people use alcohol, to obliterate the noise of the outside world" [Joyce, 2001: 28]. This book by Graham Joyce explores one father's grief for his missing twenty-two year old daughter who is allegedly imprisoned in a Thai prison. The father ventures to Thailand to try to rescue her, but nothing is as it seems and he gets caught up in red herrings, Thailand's exotic practices and opium smuggling operations. This fantastical jungle adventure has its shares of tragedy and comedy, and becomes quite surreal towards the end. However, the first half of the book is still much better than the second, and, overall, it becomes one surprisingly unexciting and disappointing "adventure".
"I used books the way some people use alcohol, to obliterate the noise of the outside world" [Joyce, 2001: 28]. This book by Graham Joyce explores one father's grief for his missing twenty-two year old daughter who is allegedly imprisoned in a Thai prison. The father ventures to Thailand to try to rescue her, but nothing is as it seems and he gets caught up in red herrings, Thailand's exotic practices and opium smuggling operations. This fantastical jungle adventure has its shares of tragedy and comedy, and becomes quite surreal towards the end. However, the first half of the book is still much better than the second, and, overall, it becomes one surprisingly unexciting and disappointing "adventure".
November 24, 2018
This was a random pick from the used book store. I was intrigued by the title and the synopsis on the back. The plot is definitely unique: Dan, a middle aged guy who is estranged from both his children and separated from his wife finds out his daughter (Charlie) has been arrested in Thailand for drug smuggling and he embarks on a journey with his born-again-Christian son Phil and his buddy Mick to rescue her.
Hard to put my finger on exactly how I feel about this book. It wasn't what I expected. I think the dry British humour woven through it was surprising given the topic, and it made the book feel like less of a thriller than the synopsis would have seemed to suggest it was. Though the tone was a bit all over the place, the novel was thriller-like in its fast pace and it did push me through the book quickly as I was interested to know what would happen.
The depiction of the tribes that Dan, Mick, and Phil encounter on their journey into the mountains came across as potentially not very authentic/somewhat problematic to me but then again I've never been to Thailand and don't know what remote Thai villages are like.
I also didn't expect the magic realism aspect of this book, but I suppose with the opium component I should have expected some hallucinatory moments. This book was kind of like Heart of Darkness plus On the Road plus A Christmas Carol (maybe not a Christmas Carol, but Dan definitely goes through the rigours of facing his past decisions and trying to repair broken relationships. He's also a definite grinch).
I appreciated Dan's growth as a character throughout the novel because honestly before he gets to Thailand I couldn't stand him--he's kind of stuck in his ways and overly critical of his kids who want to live life on their own terms. I think I am a lot more like Charlie than like Dan, and to some degree could recognize in the strained relationship between Dan & Charlie some of the changes in my relationship with my dad as I grew up and went to university and began to see the world in a different way.
This novel got better as it went along. Ultimately, it is a story about friendship, about family, and about accepting people for who they are even when they drive you nuts. Phil's reckoning with his own mental rigidity and emotional walls was actually really touching, especially in the epilogue. A very odd novel that in the end, and surprisingly, captured the experience of a father adapting to a relationship with his adult children very well.
Hard to put my finger on exactly how I feel about this book. It wasn't what I expected. I think the dry British humour woven through it was surprising given the topic, and it made the book feel like less of a thriller than the synopsis would have seemed to suggest it was. Though the tone was a bit all over the place, the novel was thriller-like in its fast pace and it did push me through the book quickly as I was interested to know what would happen.
The depiction of the tribes that Dan, Mick, and Phil encounter on their journey into the mountains came across as potentially not very authentic/somewhat problematic to me but then again I've never been to Thailand and don't know what remote Thai villages are like.
I also didn't expect the magic realism aspect of this book, but I suppose with the opium component I should have expected some hallucinatory moments. This book was kind of like Heart of Darkness plus On the Road plus A Christmas Carol (maybe not a Christmas Carol, but Dan definitely goes through the rigours of facing his past decisions and trying to repair broken relationships. He's also a definite grinch).
I appreciated Dan's growth as a character throughout the novel because honestly before he gets to Thailand I couldn't stand him--he's kind of stuck in his ways and overly critical of his kids who want to live life on their own terms. I think I am a lot more like Charlie than like Dan, and to some degree could recognize in the strained relationship between Dan & Charlie some of the changes in my relationship with my dad as I grew up and went to university and began to see the world in a different way.
This novel got better as it went along. Ultimately, it is a story about friendship, about family, and about accepting people for who they are even when they drive you nuts. Phil's reckoning with his own mental rigidity and emotional walls was actually really touching, especially in the epilogue. A very odd novel that in the end, and surprisingly, captured the experience of a father adapting to a relationship with his adult children very well.
April 4, 2025
Pretty sick man idk
October 28, 2007
Dan Innes is a father, his two children, Phil and Charlie are young adults, independent, wilful, detached. Somewhere along the way he lost the connection with his kids, more recently he lost a connection with their mother. Now, with books as his only friend, he plays weekly trivia with a group of people he doesn’t like, and pool with a man he hardly knows. That’s just how he likes it.
When he receives word that his daughter, Charlie, is in Chang Mai prison, Thailand, for opium smuggling, he sets about going to save her. He intends to go alone, but Mick, his trivia and pool partner (and self-proclaimed best friend) buys himself an air ticket and a seat next to Dan. Phil, a fundamentalist Christian, once told of his sister’s situation wrings his hands and prays to God. He declines the invitation to join his father, claiming responsibilities to his ministry, his congregation, his faith. Dan is unimpressed and tells him so.
Several days later, all three men board the plane, Mick and Dan seated together, Phil at the back with his bible and devil talk. Phil gives no indication of what changed his mind, in fact, he says very little. Mick, on the other hand, is loud and obnoxious, making fart jokes and flirting with the air-hostesses. Dan seeks distance from both men with a selection of library books by authors with opium addictions. He tries to understand his daughter’s descent, how she turned from a sweet child into a nose-pierced, Oxford-educated, societal vagrant… and now a drug mule. He finds no answers in the books, and soon enough he and his maligned companions are in Chang Mai, a seething bustle of glitter and debauchery, sex-workers so desperate that they cling like the sweat on Dan’s skin. Phil, convinced he has entered Hell on earth, near comes undone, Mick revels and Dan struggles with nausea and fear.
The prison visit with his daughter is a welcome relief to the agony of waiting, but it brings an unpredicted twist that throws Dan off-balance. Mick takes charge, revealing the depth of his friendship, while Phil teeters on the brink of spiritual meltdown.
This marks the beginning of Dan’s journey to reconnect with his children. In the jungles of Thailand, amongst poppy fields, ancient tribes corrupted by western ways, a culture he can barely understand, and companions who love him more than he knows, Dan learns about family, about love, friendship, sacrifice and fatherhood. There are glimpses of the supernatural, a study into the relationship between adult men, humour so dry that I laughed out loud, and uncertainty so real that my nerves scraped against the brittleness of it.
Graeme Joyce writes beautiful prose that brings the senses alive. Reading this novel in late-winter, Australia, I felt the suffocating closeness of high humidity, the jangled fear and perilous danger these men are put in. The novel is unpredictable, the pace not too fast to lose the depth of the story, but fast enough to keep the reader buoyant and turning pages.
Dan is such a rich character that it’s impossible not to empathise with him. He’s flawed, harsh and misguided, intelligent in mind, rich in soul, stunted in heart. Mick and Phil are frustratingly lovable, so flamboyantly unique that their hearts beat upon the page. Charlie is misguided but inspirational. Saving her life is the focus of this book, but it’s not the journey -- it's far richer than that.
When he receives word that his daughter, Charlie, is in Chang Mai prison, Thailand, for opium smuggling, he sets about going to save her. He intends to go alone, but Mick, his trivia and pool partner (and self-proclaimed best friend) buys himself an air ticket and a seat next to Dan. Phil, a fundamentalist Christian, once told of his sister’s situation wrings his hands and prays to God. He declines the invitation to join his father, claiming responsibilities to his ministry, his congregation, his faith. Dan is unimpressed and tells him so.
Several days later, all three men board the plane, Mick and Dan seated together, Phil at the back with his bible and devil talk. Phil gives no indication of what changed his mind, in fact, he says very little. Mick, on the other hand, is loud and obnoxious, making fart jokes and flirting with the air-hostesses. Dan seeks distance from both men with a selection of library books by authors with opium addictions. He tries to understand his daughter’s descent, how she turned from a sweet child into a nose-pierced, Oxford-educated, societal vagrant… and now a drug mule. He finds no answers in the books, and soon enough he and his maligned companions are in Chang Mai, a seething bustle of glitter and debauchery, sex-workers so desperate that they cling like the sweat on Dan’s skin. Phil, convinced he has entered Hell on earth, near comes undone, Mick revels and Dan struggles with nausea and fear.
The prison visit with his daughter is a welcome relief to the agony of waiting, but it brings an unpredicted twist that throws Dan off-balance. Mick takes charge, revealing the depth of his friendship, while Phil teeters on the brink of spiritual meltdown.
This marks the beginning of Dan’s journey to reconnect with his children. In the jungles of Thailand, amongst poppy fields, ancient tribes corrupted by western ways, a culture he can barely understand, and companions who love him more than he knows, Dan learns about family, about love, friendship, sacrifice and fatherhood. There are glimpses of the supernatural, a study into the relationship between adult men, humour so dry that I laughed out loud, and uncertainty so real that my nerves scraped against the brittleness of it.
Graeme Joyce writes beautiful prose that brings the senses alive. Reading this novel in late-winter, Australia, I felt the suffocating closeness of high humidity, the jangled fear and perilous danger these men are put in. The novel is unpredictable, the pace not too fast to lose the depth of the story, but fast enough to keep the reader buoyant and turning pages.
Dan is such a rich character that it’s impossible not to empathise with him. He’s flawed, harsh and misguided, intelligent in mind, rich in soul, stunted in heart. Mick and Phil are frustratingly lovable, so flamboyantly unique that their hearts beat upon the page. Charlie is misguided but inspirational. Saving her life is the focus of this book, but it’s not the journey -- it's far richer than that.
September 25, 2007
Dan Innes's little girl, Charlie, is now an adult with a mind of her own. And she's in a Thailand prison. Even though she never turns to her daddy for help anymore, when he hears she could get the death penalty it never occurs to him not to rush to her aid. Leaving behind his intellectual but empty life in London, Dan takes his pub buddy, Mick, and his fanatically Christian son, Phil, and sets out on the long journey to find his daughter. Instead, he finds the girl who stole her passport. Desperate now, he and his buddy and son hire guides to help them follow Charlie's trail in what turns out to be a grueling trek into the wilderness near Myanmar, where they encounter a wild, surreal world of spells and spirits and opium that will either split them apart forever ... or bring them back together.
In SMOKING POPPY, Graham Joyce has done an excellent job of handling both the psychological and spiritual issues mysteriously yet honestly. This book is a striking portrayal of a father's unconditional love for his children (and his children's unfailing desire to protect him). Nothing here is portrayed as right or wrong beyond the demands of loyalty. More than a thriller, more than a family novel, SMOKING POPPY seamlessly weaves the two genres together into a painful, amusing, and unnerving tale of love and violence in the exotically dangerous Asian jungle.
If you have trouble with slightly far-out spirituality, you may have trouble with this story, but if you're interested in a seriously disturbed literary trip, SMOKING POPPY will definitely deliver.
In SMOKING POPPY, Graham Joyce has done an excellent job of handling both the psychological and spiritual issues mysteriously yet honestly. This book is a striking portrayal of a father's unconditional love for his children (and his children's unfailing desire to protect him). Nothing here is portrayed as right or wrong beyond the demands of loyalty. More than a thriller, more than a family novel, SMOKING POPPY seamlessly weaves the two genres together into a painful, amusing, and unnerving tale of love and violence in the exotically dangerous Asian jungle.
If you have trouble with slightly far-out spirituality, you may have trouble with this story, but if you're interested in a seriously disturbed literary trip, SMOKING POPPY will definitely deliver.
April 27, 2013
This is different from the first four Graham Joyce stories I've read in that it does not start with a happy but dysfunctional family in the heart of England, but starts with a father, estranged from his two adult children, and separated from his wife, who is completely at a loss as to how this happened.
His life is filled with the day to day things, but he keeps a distance between himself and everyone and yet, he has a best friend, Mick, who would do anything for him.
When word comes that his daughter has been imprisoned in Thailand for drug smuggling, our hero, Dan, decides he must go see her and see what can be done. Much to his surprise, his son, Phil, and his friend, Mick, insist on going with him.
What follows is an amazing story of common people facing unbelievable challenges and a journey more incredible than the three men could ever ever imagine. I will not try to retell this story, but would say I couldn't put this book down, and as always with Graham Joyce I loved all the characters. He has a knack of making even the unsavory have at least something redeeming. It also gets back to his theme of family love, and how we push people away without meaning to.
I cried at the end.
Oh, and there are ghosts and spirits.
His life is filled with the day to day things, but he keeps a distance between himself and everyone and yet, he has a best friend, Mick, who would do anything for him.
When word comes that his daughter has been imprisoned in Thailand for drug smuggling, our hero, Dan, decides he must go see her and see what can be done. Much to his surprise, his son, Phil, and his friend, Mick, insist on going with him.
What follows is an amazing story of common people facing unbelievable challenges and a journey more incredible than the three men could ever ever imagine. I will not try to retell this story, but would say I couldn't put this book down, and as always with Graham Joyce I loved all the characters. He has a knack of making even the unsavory have at least something redeeming. It also gets back to his theme of family love, and how we push people away without meaning to.
I cried at the end.
Oh, and there are ghosts and spirits.
December 31, 2014
Graham Joyce has been one of my favorite authors for years, ever since I discovered him with Some Kind of Fairy Tale. Most of his books that I've read, however, seem to have astounding, otherworldly conceits and immediately hook me in at the beginning, but end sort of abruptly. This was true for me with Indigo, Requiem, and even in Some Kind of Fairy Tale, all of which I still loved, however I feel like with its simple but gripping story and (especially!) the satisfying ending Smoking Poppy is my favorite of his books so far. This book is the perfect escape from everyday life with its surreal journey and family connection. I'm a fan of a fairy tale-like quest and that's what this book is--as soon as protagonist Danny discovers that his daughter's passport was stolen and she's somewhere up in the wild mountains, his adventure is cut out for him. This is also the only one of Joyce's books that I've read that is told completely in first person and I thought it was a nice change of pace. Smoking Poppy is a beautiful, glorious and magical tale of family and love that you should read if you haven't already.
January 31, 2018
4 stars for this tale of a man trying to save his daughter. We follow Dan as he leaves his quiet & somewhat boring life of pub quizzes and trying to build flatpack furniture to save his daughter who is reportedly in a Thai prison for smuggling opium. He is joined on his journey by drinking buddy Mick & his son.
Well paced and very well written - I felt every mossie bite, the contant sweating and could almost smell the deep jungles of Thailand/Myanmar.
Well paced and very well written - I felt every mossie bite, the contant sweating and could almost smell the deep jungles of Thailand/Myanmar.
September 18, 2014
A book that takes you on a journey into the dark side of the thai opium trade to find a lost daughter deep within the jungle. Fascinating and brutal at times but a book that's hard to put down and has you on the edge of your seat right to the end. Another Graham Joyce masterpiece.Graham Joyce lost his battle with cancer last tuesday he will be very sadly missed by me and the rest of his many followers.
August 6, 2007
A British father learns that his largely estranged daughter has been arrested and detained for drug-smuggling in Thailand. His quest (with his equally estranged son and his "best friend") is part adventure, part Heart of Darkness, part religious pilgrimage and just freaky enough to be not only entertaining but really worthwhile.
August 14, 2016
If you enjoy novels about Westerners traveling to 3rd world countries and dealing with danger and other difficult problems, then you will enjoy this novel. This tale takes place in the jungles of Northern Thailand. A man goes to rescue his daughter from a Thai jail and .... won't spoil the story.
September 3, 2015
Dreamy, soporific and thought provoking, this book read like a more stoned version of Apocalypse Now, but with family included, explores the idea of bonds beautifully. I miss Graham Joyce.
September 6, 2024
beautiful, thank you dad ❤️ i’m so lucky to have these
February 17, 2022
This is a book with a great plot. You never know what's around the corner. The father's quest to find his daughter seeps through the pages. However, I do have issues with the book. Unusual for me to like a book when I didn't really like most of the characters (only the daughter, Charlie, didn't raise my ire). Maybe this was intentional on the author's part, maybe not. However, by the end of the book the characters didn't grate on me as badly, as they all seemed to redeem themselves and not be quite so boisterous. My main complaint lies in the "stereotyping" of the Thai people. Thai women are "hags" with sharpened teeth, sex workers, depraved. Thai men, who can guess if they're 16 or 60! Thailand is "a foaming tide of sin... Whores! Drugs! Booze! Gluttony! Usury!.. This is inquity! Depravity! This is a heathen place! This is a platform of stink and corruption and darkness..." according to the son, Phil, who accompanies his father on this journey, along with Mick (a pub friend of the Dad's). Toward the end of the book, you sense the opinions of the Thai are not so brutal. But, the transisition never comes full circle. The father acknowledges he changed certain details to protect the Thai hill people where he finds his daughter. He acknowledges those that have helped him and his daughter. Having been to Thailand, I just felt the portrayal of the Thai people was too harsh, too judgemental. But honestly, I had a hard time putting this book down. The story, the journey, kept me intrigued. Just conflicted over liking it.
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