Holiday in Cambodia

by Laura Jean McKay

Shortlisted for the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing in the 2014 NSW Premier's Literary Awards

Beyond the killing fields and the temples of Angkor is a country with a genocidal past and a wide, open smile. A frontier land where anything is possible – at least for the tourists.

In Holiday in Cambodia Laura Jean McKay explores the electric zone where local and foreign lives meet. There are tender, funny moments of tentative understanding, as well as devastating re-imaginings of a troubled history.

Three backpackers board a train, ignoring the danger signs – and find themselves in the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

Elderly sisters are visited by their vampire niece from Australia and set out to cure her.

A singer creates a sensation in swinging 1969, on the eve of an American bombing campaign.

These are bold and haunting stories by a remarkable new talent.

‘Each of these stories is like catching a snippet of a conversation or looking into a lit window in a dark night, and loitering longer than you should to hear and see what characters inadvertently reveal about themselves. Holiday in Cambodia shows the ugly side of post-colonial tourism as well as moments of great pathos and dignity; in a compelling and empathetic voice.’ – Alice Pung

‘Polished, Hemingwayesque snapshots, vivid and atmospheric’ - Steven Carroll

‘a serious and impressive attempt to engage with Cambodia in all its pock-marked history.’ - Sunday Age

‘Mckay’s artful balancing of strong themes with perceptive detail, even humour, allows Holiday in Cambodia to explore what many of its characters are only half-heartedly searching the real Cambodia, a country still trying to recover.’ - Australian Book Review

‘The range of perspectives offered across these stories works like word of mouth, building a picture of a country on trust.’ - the Australian

Laura Jean McKay’s writing has been published in The Best Australian Stories, Sleepers , the Big Issue, Women of Letters and Going Down Swinging . She has been shortlisted for national and international awards and in 2011 won the Alan Marshall Short Story Award. She lives in Melbourne.

Genres: Short Stories, Asia, Travel, Fiction, Literary Fiction, Australia

167 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 26, 2013

About the author

Laura Jean McKay is the author of THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY (Scribe 2020), winner of The Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature 2021, The Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of an Aurealis Award 2021. The Animals in That Country was also shortlisted for The Stella Prize, The ASL Gold Medal, The Readings Prize and longlisted for The Miles Franklin. She is the author of HOLIDAY IN CAMBODIA (Black Inc 2013) and an adjunct lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. Laura's next collection GUNFLOWER will be released in 2023.

Reviews

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Where kings went, where singers went, where the Khmer Rouges went, and stayed, still camped up in the Elephant Mountains."

Holiday in Cambodia by Laura Jean McKay


Holiday in Cambodia is a series of short stories, some from past times, others current about Cambodia. The best way to describe them would be Vignettes or little slices of life.

This is one of those times I really wish there was a scale of 1-10 on GR. I liked but did not love this and I am worried that giving a rating of 3, will look like I do not like it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

But you have to be in the right mood to read these and you also have to know that the stories, do not, in themselves, end with clarity. They just sort of trickle off.

If I were to rate this on a one to ten scale I would give it a 7.5. I of coarse en joyed some stories more then others. There are over a dozen and all are quite short.

The first one..concerning a group of people in transit who accidentally fall to captivity at the hands of the Khmer Rouge is heartbreaking. Most of the stories ar pretty dark. That is why I said you have to be in the right mood.

I enjoy reading about other cultures and time periods and also enjoy short stories so this seemed a good pic. If you share an interest in those types of books, this is one you will want to check out.

[Angela Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holiday in Cambodia was not what I expected. Taking its title from a 1980 song by the Dead Kennedys, I assumed the collection would focus on the foreign tourist experience -- a kind of literary travelogue. But while tourists do feature in a couple of stories, these are a long way from travelogue. 'Route Four', in which three foolish backpackers take a train through Khmer Rouge held territory, can be read as a metaphor for the dangers of tourism for local people; while 'Taxi' is an ugly, if eerily intimate account of an Australian man's encounter with a Cambodian 'taxi girl', so-called 'because they're for hire and you can ride them all night long', as one of the characters puts it.

Of the remaining fifteen stories, seven are told from the point of view of Cambodians, eight from the perspective of expatriates. Many of these stories are so intimate, at times it felt almost voyeuristic to read them. But the combination of compelling characters and crisp prose proved irresistible.

The stories take place in different historical periods. In 'Breakfast', a worker in a Cambodian hotel gets her big break as a singer just as the 1969 American bombing campaign known as Operation Breakfast begins. In 'Congratulations On Your Happy Day', the author manages to imagine the unimaginable in this story of forced marriages under the Khmer Rouge in the early 1970s.

'Holiday, I Love You', told from the perspective of a garment factory worker, highlights -- without a trace of didacticism -- the dangers for unionists and labour organisers in present-day Phnom Penh. In 'Tell Me Where To Run', an impoverished young boy who sells books on the street is ineligible for subsidised education because of a focus that year on 'vulnerable orphan girls' by the international development agency. In 'A Thousand Cobs of Corn', a Cambodian mother -- whose first child 'is in ashes at the temple' -- reflects on her job clearing landmines. 'Massage 8000' acts as a counterpoint to 'Taxi', describing brothel life from the workers' point of view as a young girl is sold off for the first time. All were among the stories that left the strongest impression on me.

Of the others, 'Coming Up' spoke to my experience as an expatriate in Southeast Asia, where you try so hard to be respectful only to have family members and friends stumble in with all their cultural insensitivities -- and your local partners love them for it!

I didn't expect Holiday in Cambodia to blow my mind. But it did.

[Michael Livingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories thematically linked by their setting (Cambodia). The writing is incisive and precise, and some stories are hugely affecting (the first in particular will stay with you). It's strongest when dealing with the interaction between the West and Cambodia, but it's all very compelling.

[Kirsten Krauth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first came across Laura Jean McKay’s collection of short stories Holiday in Cambodia when I was researching new books set in the region, inspired by Walter Mason’s Destination Cambodia. After a brief trip there in 2005, it’s a country I have remained fascinated with. I wrote voraciously about it at the time (must fossick for that notebook!) and remember, at the end of each day travelling, being exhilarated and exhausted by the conflicting imagery — the gut-wrenching violence of the Killing Fields tour; the joy on the face of a girl as she gave me a tarantula to eat — and the sudden awareness of the richness of my life, in all senses of the word (see Laura’s reflections on this later).

So I was thrilled when Laura sent in her book to be featured in November’s Friday Night Fictions club for debut authors. Her collection is harrowing, gutsy and makes you squirm at times. She takes on a variety of perspectives, all confidently characterised, including the dreams of local Cambodians — a young prostitute; a woman who works in a factory — interspersed with the more familiar terrain (for Australians) of the tourist abroad.

The writing is straight, finely tuned and never sentimental. And while I don’t think shorts exist merely as a lead-in to longer work (see my recent review in The Australian of The Great Unknown and Sleepers Almanac), it’s a sign for me of the writer’s potential if I’m left at the end of a short story desperate to know more.

When I interviewed Laura, I was particularly interested to hear that her dad was a writer — as my father is too. I’ve often wondered whether people can have a ‘writer gene’, where they are born to write, as it often feels like this when I do it. I still think it’s pretty much all about hard work and resilience but, comparing my books with my dad’s, there’s a similar voice that emerges, a style that we seem to share. I also love her comments about shyness and eccentricity (as I’ve unearthed ideas about this on the blog along the way).

And I’m very grateful that she chose to ignore those people who told her not to bother with a short story collection, because ‘people won’t read it’. We need more of them published! You can hear Laura reading one of her short stories ‘The Expatriate’ if you fancy a taste.

Do you remember the moment when you decided you wanted to be a writer?

I don’t think there was a moment where I thought ‘I will be a writer’ but there was definitely a point when I started writing. My dad, who was a poet, died before I was born. Mum and some of his friends published his poems in a book that was always around the house when I was little. When I was 11 or 12 I found a suitcase of all his drafts — those scraps of paper and notebooks that most writers have. I think seeing that process, a whole suitcase filled with process, and knowing about the final product of the book had a big influence on me. I started writing poetry using sort of the language he used. So there was this kid poetry — often written in texta — with this adult man imagery. It makes for pretty strange and interesting reading. I guess poetry taught me how to look at the world — and then I found prose.

Your book is a collection of short stories set in Cambodia. Did you set about from the start to publish a collection of short stories? Or did you write one story at a time and start to see the connections?

I actually started off writing an historical novel about the 60s surf rock music scene that was rocking Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge. I wrote about ten or twenty thousand words of it and realised I couldn’t fit all I wanted into that structure. I naturally default to writing short stories — I think I always will — and so as well as struggling through the novel I’d been bashing out these stories about modern Cambodia. After a while I realised that I was working on a collection and that this was the only structure that would allow me to say what I wanted to say. The novel is in there though! It’s a story called ‘Breakfast’ and I reckon I wrote a whole novella’s worth to get to the final 5000 words. I don’t know why it was so hard — maybe because it was carrying the weight of the novel or maybe because so much was lost when the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh in April ’75. It’s not a sad story but I found it incredibly hard to write because I was writing about a lost time, a time not without problems, but when Cambodia was independent and thriving.

A lot of people told me not to write a short story collection, that it wouldn’t be published and that people didn’t read them. I thought, ‘Well, I can either write a novel that I know isn’t going to be what I want it to be, or a short story collection that will.’ My partner says I’m dogged that way …

Why Cambodia? Did it start off as a holiday?

I first went to Cambodia as a volunteer aid worker in 2007. Phnom Penh, and Cambodia, was really doing pretty well by then — a lot of people had adjusted to independence from the UN and there were facilities in place, roads and mobile phone services, cafes etc. Cambodian people were reviving traditions and doing incredible things with education. I got a job working up in the remote north and expats told me stories about how all the aid workers used to meet every Friday night as a rule so that they would know everyone was still alive and not lost or shot somewhere out in the jungle. Still, I was completely bowled over by the levels of poverty, the lack of infrastructure, the corruption and the violence. I saw a man using his chin to cross a busy road in Phnom Penh because that was what he had left to use. I knew that behind the polite and smiling exterior that most tourists experience on a holiday, the levels of domestic violence were (and possibly still are) astronomical. The tourist/expat scene of which I was a part, completely shocked me as well. I was repulsed by the things I said and the assumptions I made and the way I acted. My perception of what ‘rich’ is completely changed as I realised that money in the bank was one thing, living in a country that will care for you if you’re old, young, physically or mentally disabled, a single parent etc, is another. I realised I was billionaire-rich because I was from a location in the world and of a race and had a passport that meant I would probably be looked after. This all makes for a lot to write about …

Why did you choose the Dead Kennedys song as your title (other than that it’s catchy!)?

The title for the book came very late in the piece, after I’d completely rewritten the first draft and I was about to send it out to publishers. I used to hang out in the 90s punk scene in Brisbane, where my contribution was having blue hair and attending a lot of gigs, and I remember hearing ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ on a CD for the first time and thinking that the Dead Kennedys really knew about everything. I think I was singing the song to myself in 2012 when I was taking a break from writing and realised that the lyrics of that song (written in 1980) still applied, that I had experienced a version of what Jello Biafra was describing, and that Holiday in Cambodia was the title for my book. If there is a central question to the collection, I guess it’s: how can you have a holiday in Cambodia? It’s like having a holiday in Rwanda, or Syria.

Recently Jello Biafra’s agent wrote asking for a few copies of the book …

What is it that you love most about writing?

Everything and nothing. I love the first image that I see so clearly it’s as though it has happened, and I know there might be a story there. I love when I’m writing absolute shit and it’s impossible and it’s only the fear and guilt that’s driving me on (fear that I won’t finish it, guilt that I’ve given up everything else to do it) and the shitness builds and builds like a bubble and then pop I’m through it — I know what I’m writing and that it will be okay. I love that every time I write I have to solve a series of problems and if I do that I can handle most things. I love getting something to the point where it’s as good as I’m physically and mentally and emotionally capable of producing and knowing that, with a good editor, I’ll be able to take it even further. I love being inside a story — where I’m not thinking about it but I’m so in it that it takes up my everything, even when I’m not working on it. You know?

How did you go about getting the book published?

It wasn’t as hard people said it would be but it wasn’t as easy as some publishing tales I’ve heard either. I sent it to one publisher before it was ready and that was a mistake. I imagined they would see what I envisioned for it and instead they, understandably, saw what I gave them. I got some truly lovely feedback and only one shitty rejection. Most people wanted to see ‘my novel’. It didn’t take too long before I had a great meeting with Black Inc. who said they liked the work and wanted it. I admired the hell out of their books already so it was exciting but also it felt just right.

I wrote two novel manuscripts in my 20s so I knew how to write longer works but I didn’t know how to take them to the next stage. I thought the process was: write the first draft, ‘edit’ it to make the sentences nicer, proof read, send to your favourite publisher. I didn’t understand how the process of rewriting 50 per cent of the book until it’s almost unrecognisable could bring it to a stage where a publisher could see it as a book. Now I’m writing a novel and I’m working on getting the story out and the characters and voice right without being too particular, knowing that in the next draft I’ll kick its arse.

You set yourself the challenging goal of writing from many character perspectives, both Cambodian and traveller. How did you research the Cambodian characters in particular? And how did you check that the writing seemed true?

I didn’t set out to write from a lot of different perspectives. I think every short story (or every piece of writing) needs to be treated as unique, something with its own needs that might be vastly different from the previous story I wrote. That’s probably where the different perspectives come from. Often I would write a story from one perspective and change it in the next draft. With the story ‘Like no one is watching’, I originally wrote the whole thing from the perspective of a Cambodian woman. It’s about acid throwing in Cambodia, which used to happen quite a bit as a ‘crime of passion’. Someone would get jealous about a real or perceived affair and would buy acid from the market for a few dollars and throw it on the face of their partner or the person they thought their partner was with. Often it doesn’t kill the person but maims them horribly — it’s incredibly painful and damaging. I realised that I needed to tell it from a Western perspective because not only is it an awful situation but it’s so culturally scary. I wanted to juxtapose that with the culturally awful things that Westerners do.

I did a Masters degree researching stories written about Cambodia by Cambodian and non-Cambodian writers. I also used my experiences, showed some stories to friends in Cambodia and generally sought advice. I worked with a great writing group in Phnom Penh who were so encouraging and inspiring. Although I don’t speak Khmer I was really influenced by the stories that I was told or that were published in English — both by contemporary and older Cambodian writers. One of the stories I wrote was published in Nou Hach literary journal in Phnom Penh — that felt really good.

I had a book launch of Holiday in Cambodia in Phnom Penh and Chakriya Phou — a writer whose work I love — launched it. Her take on the stories was so incredible — I learnt things about Cambodia from her speech that I wouldn’t have been able to access if we weren’t in touch through writing. Having said that, the stories are fiction. They’re not true. I would be very surprised if some people didn’t find them inaccurate and sometimes offensive. I don’t think you can escape that as a fiction writer, especially one writing about a different country and culture. I guess that’s another reason I called it Holiday in Cambodia, to make it clear that I am always a tourist in the places I write about.

Do you have a writing community where you live? Do you like the company of other writers when working on drafts, or are you someone who prefers to go it alone?

My partner, Tom Doig, is also a writer and last year we started our PhDs and moved to Portarlington, a bay-side town on the Bellarine Peninsula. We did that so we could write and to write we needed to be in a place where we knew no one. I have actively resisted making friends here. Before that we were living in a unit in Brunswick overlooking our concrete car space and we were pathologically social. We had spaces in an awesome writers’ studio and met with friends every other day and there were festivals and parties and I said yes to everything. Sometimes I think I was drawn to short stories because I could get one out in a couple of writing sessions and still go to the thing I had on that night. But I also want to write novels and a quiet town with the bay out the window is the company I need at the moment.

Now my writing community is more formal. I see people at writers’ festivals and meet up with a writing group every six weeks or so where we rip each other’s stories to shreds and drink tea. I miss my friends and family, though, and go into the city to hug them when I can.

What is the most important thing you’ve learned in the process of writing your first book, that you wish you knew at the beginning?

Because I’d tested out a lot of my awful behaviour and mistakes on my first manuscripts, I felt that the creation of this one went pretty well, in that I had some terrific readers to go through the first draft and tell me all the things that needed to be done. I knew how much work I’d need to do to make it publishable. I wasn’t under any illusions about some magical muse who would take me away or that I would be discovered. In retrospect, with the first manuscripts, I had some incredible opportunities presented to me that I either didn’t recognise or was too shy to take up. I was so shy. People don’t think so because I like performing and being on stage. I’ve learnt that eccentricity is more productive than shyness so have settled for that.

Which authors have been instrumental to your own reading and writing?

I don’t love all of one author’s work and I think that’s a good thing. It shows that they’ve changed and developed and challenged themselves, trying new things that appeal to different readers. I adore almost every Janet Frame short story I’ve read, for example, but can’t read her novels. Same with Lorrie Moore. Gritty realist literary fiction with a dystopian edge is probably the book shelf I would gravitate towards in the ultimate bookshop!

When I was younger, poets like William Blake, Sylvia Plath and Leonard Cohen (I didn’t know that Cohen was a singer for a very long time) influenced me. I read Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things when I was 20 and it changed my idea of how a novel could be. Janet Frame’s The Lagoon and Other Stories and JD Salinger’s To Esme with Love and Squalor are short story collections that I have read over and over again — they are so perfect and flawed: the best combination. I really love Raymond Carver’s work. I resist reading novels by Russian writers (translated) because I love them too much and I can’t do anything else while I’m reading them – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Cancer Ward and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina are my favourites. Knowing writers like Romy Ash and Anna Krien and seeing their work develop and their books come out has been amazing. I saw how hard they worked and how great that work was and thought, shit, I’d better work about three times harder than I do now!

Living out in the country means more time to read and in the last year I have read such brilliant books by Australian authors: Eva Hornung’s Dog Boy, Jessie Cole’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and Peter Goldsworthy’s Wish are three that have recently blown my mind. I’m just starting Charlotte Wood’s Animal People and Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book. This list could change completely tomorrow. This is what has influenced me today.

This review and interview kindly brought to you by Wild Colonial Girl blog:

http://kirstenkrauth.com/wild-colonia...

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laura Jean McKay is a fabulous young Australian author whose personality and experience spill from the pages of this short story collection. I met Laura when she ran a Short Story Workshop at the Wheeler Center in Melbourne. She is approachable and kind as a teacher, not to mention knowledgeable in her approach to creative writing.

The stories in this book focus on Cambodia and it's goings-on, whether it be in the lives of locals, tourists or those who find themselves in this complicated land for charity/ work commitments. I would have given it five stars but I found that I didn't connect emotionally with many of the stories as some of the points being made seemed slightly weak and could have been further developed.

Overall, a proud addition to Australian Short Story writing.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so excited to read this book. The title is taken from a Dead Kennedys song - can't go wrong there. And I travelled to Cambodia a few years back and really loved the country and the people. Unfortunately, I found the book disappointing though. I've never been a huge fan of short stories. It always feels like they're just about to start when they stop - and this really lived up to that presumption. Some of the stories were very short, some were very confusing and some just didn't make much sense at all. Some, however were good and that is what made me read to the end. So, okay, but not great....

[Philipc · Rating 5 out of 5]

McKay writes with a great economy and precision, and clearly has a special empathy for Cambodia.

Most of the 17 stories of “Holiday” (title from the 1980 Dead Kennedys song) are set in the modern day, with a few between 1951 and 1994. Individual stories are linked by more than just the Cambodian setting – the 1951 vampire-Lolita of The Deep Ambition of Rossi, scheming her way into Prince Sihanouk’s bed, blood dribbling down her chin, reappears as the modern-day Susan from Australia, syringe in her pouch, in Vampires from Cambodia; Le Cercle Sportif, the chic colonial in-place of Rossi, crops up again, shabby and down on its luck, as the neighbour of a modern-day massage parlour-cum-brothel in Massage 8000; clueless characters from the appallingly but appropriately named NGO, Suffer the Children, crop up across a number of stories. The links form an ironic supra-narrative, so that a story about the murder of a union representative trying to get better conditions for workers in a T-shirt factory (Holiday I Love You) casts a shadow over another in which a tourist observes that bar-work must be better than a T-shirt factory (Taxi). Each story stands alone, but a slow reading will bring out this extra layer of texture.

The themes of Holiday are sex and death. Three backpackers and an urchin in “Route Four” are bound for execution on the train to Kampot; the unnamed expat girl in The Expatriate (yet another employee of the ubiquitous Suffer the Children) comes face to face with meaningless death; in Coming Up we wait for a body to surface from the bottom of a lake, while yet another of the ladies from Suffer the Children reveals her inability to understand or communicate with the Cambodians (though her mother’s doing just fine). Alongside this is the search for the real Cambodia, sometimes bizarrely funny (A Pocket Guide To Phnom Penh), sometimes just bizarre (The Real Cambodia, which introduces the image of the apsara/Real Cambodia as destroying vampire).

Cambodia occupies a special place in the collective Western imagination, one defined by drugs, easy sex, and senseless violence – “See Cambodia and Die” is a slogan I’d advise the local tourist authorities not to consider. It has become the emblematic “other”, the place where the rules end and chaos begins. “Holiday” has been praised for its “Hemingwayesque snapshots,” but what while that’s true in its way it fails to capture the spiritual essence of the book: what springs to my mind more Paul Bowles, the nothingness that lies behind the sheltering sky.

[Anna Spargo-Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holiday in Cambodia is a collection of short stories, all set in Cambodia, and all giving different insights into the place that it is. It is described by the publisher as “explor[ing] the electric zone where local and foreign lives meet,” and that is exactly how I felt when reading it. There are brief intersections between characters from different stories, but for the most part, each one stands alone as a fully-realised piece. McKay’s ability to shift voice to create distinct stories is magic. I often struggle with short story collections because, after six or seven stories, they can begin to blend into one jumbled narrative. Holiday in Cambodia is not like that at all; it varies from clear, factual narrative to magic realism to satire.

The rest of this review can be found at http://blog.annaspargoryan.com/2014/03/book-review-holiday-in-cambodia/.

[Yarra · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this book. It consists of different stories that, basically, do not say anything. It is all just describing different activities without meaningful ending. Characters are empty shells, with no psychological or emotional descriptions. The title is very deceiving. Although it is situated in Cambodia and mentions its history, people and society, you do not get any specific feeling that it is situated in Asia. I was trying to finish reading, but it was not easy, and I just skipped over many passages towards the end of the book. This is one of those books that will make you nervous, unhappy, ruin your mood, and in the end you will feel sorry that you started reading it. It seems my opinion differs from majority of others, but I cannot help myself - not a book that I may like. I understand that it consists of different stories, but I think authors at least could try to make those stories to actually tell some kind of story, and not just pointlessly describe different events.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, actually I've only read two of the stories because *a-hem* I'm one of those readers who prefers the longer form of a novel. (See the review by Kirsten Krauth below.)
But because I've visited Cambodia, I was attracted by the title, and brought it home from the library not realising it was a collection of short stories.
So I'm just here to say that the first two stories were interesting to read and the writing was very good indeed, and so if you like short stories, you'll probably enjoy this collection!

[James Tierney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conversations tinged with memories of Cambodia's catastrophic past - See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...

[Louise Omer · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, I love this book! I'm not big on short stories but they were so purposeful as snapshots of cultures and lives. The pieces were emotionally heavy and there was so much poetry in the prose. So good!

[Janine Job · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book. Evocative. Distilled stories told in a compelling clear sharp fresh way. Each totally different in subject and style. I was there too, with the words in the story.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bold, haunting stories.

[John Sheahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of meeting Laura Jean (LJM) at a literary in Wagga Wagga on my recent trip to the Riverina and attending a workshop she ran for writers. She is vivacious and intense. The same may be said of her writing.
As the title suggests, these 17 short stories are set in Cambodia, but they span decades – the earliest seem to be in the 1950s and the most recent are in the present – and include 1969 (Vietnam War) and 1994 (post-Pol Pot). The title also suggests something of the First World heading off to the economic fringes of the planet for a ‘break’.
The desire for authenticity of experience in a foreign culture is a motif in the stories. It leads some characters to ruin, others to exploitative banality, but no-one to the authenticity they might have been expecting. The satirising of the emptiness of this search as conducted through the tourist sights is frequently savage. I didn’t laugh much; there was quite a deal of hanging and shaking the head at what I was seeing in the mirror of this work.
I believe it is a work rather than a collection of works. The multitude of perspectives, with the manifold experiences of Cambodia through the last sixty years, create a portrait of the country. LJM has used ‘holidaying’ as her brush. I am reminded of the effect of the gospels – four perspectives that together create a far more rounded portrait than any single perspective gives.
Holiday is riveting. It is gritty writing, unconventional, replete with a wide diversity of characters and scenarios with – dare I say it – an abiding authenticity. The climate oozes from the writing. (I am recently returned from Timor Leste; as I read, I relived the heat, sweat and heavy air.) War’s legacy is everywhere and usually evoked through small details, quietly, beyond the tourist’s senses. The images of people and places are vivid and sometimes fleeting.
I don’t always ‘get’ the endings. Maybe my expectation that there will be something to get is the issue? In that respect, some remind me of Coleridge’s fragments, especially ‘Kubla Khan’. Not bad company, but I’m conservative, I know.
If you don’t mind thinking about what you read, if you relish the prospect of seeing the familiar reflected in a different light, if you value honesty and technical excellence, Holiday in Cambodia is worth picking up. More than ever now, I want to visit Cambodia. Don’t you just love a paradox!
(This review is also posted on my website.)

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled across this while looking for a holiday read, and then didn't put it down all day. It was incredibly interesting, a series of short stories or vignettes about holidays in Cambodia or Cambodian times. It did past, present, and even (I think) a future, which was something I had never encountered before. There were things about Khmer culture, Khmer Rouge, present day bar girls, ghosts, fortune, and a host of nods to pieces of the Cambodia that I know and love. Some stories were sad, some funny, some unusual, and all of them well written. The words were well chosen, succinct. I recommend this to anyone who knows Cambodia in one way or another; it was interesting, and a quick read.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holiday in Cambodia is a collection of short stories written by Australian author Laura Jean McKay. All the stories are set in Cambodia & each one gives a glimpse into a different part of Cambodian life. These stories are dark, raw and confrontational. Many stories deal with Cambodian life in the aftermath of the civil war. The stories also examine the way that Western culture clashes with Cambodian. This has definitely made me want to learn more about Cambodia.

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this book to read on my holiday to Cambodia hoping it would give me some insight into the country. Most of the stories made no senses and there was no clue to when or where they were set and no introduction to the characters. The story set in the future was just silly!

[Nomdo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Complete incoherent collection of waffle. One or two stories really actually are meaningful, the other stories are just random and have neither a beginning or an end. Just some random blabber. Feels as if the author was using certain substances that seem a recurring theme while writing the book.

[Barbara Dawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haunting.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing but disturbing and often found stories hard to follow. Confirmed that I almost certainly would not like to visit Cambodia.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The undercurrent of danger, trauma, history, loss and terror is never far away in any exchange in Phnom Penh, whether as a tourist, or as an expatriate living and working. The country has so much history, and future, it's an electric buzz in everything you do.

From families from the Provinces, trying to earn to survive, to girls at factories or trapped in the talons of the sex industry. The streets and the food, the challenges and frustrations of every day transactions. The connections and joys, the endearment, of respect and love. These stories captures it all.

A short story collection that so beautifully captures the experience as an ex-pat living in Phnom Penh, the stories heard, the challenges, and then the heart of the lives and characters of the Cambodians you meet, work with, engage to help your experience in their country. Sure enough, checking the acknowledgements, Laura has presumably had an AVI experience, similar to the AYAD volunteer program I did. So many similarities, memories. This really brought it all back to mind for me - perfect as a preparation read for a visit back to the 'Bodge.

A great read to feel the vibe of Phnom Penh, recent and past.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a solid collection of short stories about a country I recently visited and fell pretty hard for. My favorites were Massage 8000, Route Four, Taxi and Operation Breakfast. I am very interested in reading books written by Cambodian authors. This was written by an Australian, which felt a little off at times which I expected. I would read more from her and especially if they are about her homeland. I can appreciate an outsiders perspective but felt like it wasn't dissimilar from my own. Cambodians deserve the opportunities to tell their own stories.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel that the highest praise I can give a book of short stories as wonderful and eclectic as this is that I wish they were all a bit longer to give me the chance to delve closer into these character's lives. With no story alike, and a heady mix of genres and topics (genocide/colonial France/sex work/foreign aid workers) filling up the pages it is a quietly mesmerising read.

[Denise Rawling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smart, sharp and unsentimental but with heart.

[Sudarshan Varadhan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible book. The biggest positive is that it is just a little over 100 pages. That's also the worst part, because the author shouldn't have put pen on paper to write this in the first place.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite simply that this book of short stories does a sensational job of withholding, of giving just enough insight, character development and storyline to get you hooked, so hooked in fact that you want more, you want the stories to go on, only they don’t. They stop. Often quite abruptly. Which, for me, only added to their appeal. I liked that there wasn’t a focus on providing an excess of detail and character emotions, that there was a holding back, which allowed me to engage more fully with the stories being narrated.

Holiday in Cambodia is a collection of 17 short stories that portray the cultural differences between Australia and Cambodia, and highlights attitudes to life, relationships, death, superstitions and sex. Holiday in Cambodia is filled with weighty, powerful stories, driven by well-developed, real characters. Some so real that they’ll make you cringe. The Australian characters, in the form of expats, aid workers and tourists, are immediately recognisable by the way that they behave, sometimes badly - from the expat men who frequent brothels to the mother who inserts herself into a grieving family to satisfy her sense of morbid curiosity about death. The stories push deeper beyond the stereotypes to explore Cambodian culture, superstitions and the tragedy and loss experienced by a country ravaged by war and the Khmer Rouge, and the ongoing loss of life and limb due to unexploded ordinances that lie hidden in the soil.

Read the full review at: http://sonjaporter07.wordpress.com/

[Andrew Tattersall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of vignettes about Cambodia from the late 40's or early 50's "a country where one might find a peaceful future." to nowish. I enjoyed the two historical stories the most as I felt a clear sense of place in them. For me, the futuristic one didn't work as it had no sense of place and I enjoyed reading the modern set stories but was not sure all of them worked. There were one or two where I wanted to know more about what happened to the characters, but isn't that the definition of a good narrative - leave them wanting more? Worth reading.

[Kai Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read many short story anthologies but this one was fantastic. I loved the common theme of Cambodia tying together different races, time periods, and perspectives. McKay's writing style was sobering, humorous, and sometimes surreal.
Favourite stories:
The Expatriate
A Thousand Cobs of Corn
Congratulations on Your Happy Day

[Roxanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Survivor was in Cambodia this year so I wanted to learn more about the country. This is more like little stories of traveling.