The astonishing true story of trust, pain, becoming lost, and finding a way back to yourself despite it all

'An intimate preservation of a moment in time, full of personality' THE TIMES

What happens when a writer can no longer write? What happens when pain is so intense that you question who you are and whether you can bear it any longer?
__________

Oliver Mol was a successful, clever, healthy twenty-five-year old. Then one day the migraine started.

For ten months, the pain was constant, exacerbated by writing, reading, using computers, looking at phones or anything with a screen. Slowly he became a writer who could no longer write, and a person who could no longer communicate with the modern world. In literature, and life, Oliver began to disappear.

His doctors couldn't figure out how to fix him. He suffered a breakdown. And one evening, high on painkillers, Oliver Googled the only thing he could think of: 'full-time job, no experience, Sydney'. An ad for a train guard appeared and, desperate, Oliver took it.

For two years Oliver watched others live their lives, observing the minutia and intimacy of strangers brought together briefly and connected by the steady march of time.

Exquisitely written and bravely told, Train Lord is a searingly personal yet universal book, which asks what happens when your sense of self is suddenly destroyed, and how you get it back.

About the Author
Oliver Mol is the author of the critically acclaimed Lion Attack!. He was the inaugural winner of the Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers as well as the recipient of an Australian Council Grant. In 2020, the stage show of Train Lord proved a runaway success during the Sydney Fringe Season. Oliver grew up dividing his time between Texas and Brisbane and now lives in Sydney.

Reviews
Mol's offbeat prose has a one-man performance quality to it . . . If Train Lord were a train, it would be a heritage line, an intimate preservation of a moment in time, full of personality * The Times *
As much about the art, craft and alchemy of storytelling as it is about healing * Heromag *
Rude, raw, visceral, painful and wildly funny * Saga Magazine *
A highly intimate and emotional consideration of the relationship between pain, life, and the methods we use to escape both * Adelaide Fringe *
Mol's writing is a revelation. Nuanced, at times dryly satirical or melancholy, it is always rich, poetic and intoxicating * Bakehouse Studio *
Like his alt-lit forebears, Oliver Mol's writing can often feel like alchemy, constructing brief, glimmering moments of catharsis from the meandering absurdities of life * Guardian, 'Best Australian Books of 2022' *
A highly intimate and emotional consideration of the relationship between pain, life, and the methods we use to escape both * ADELAIDE FRINGE *
Mol's writing is a revelation. Nuanced, at times dryly satirical or melancholy, it is always rich, poetic and intoxicating * Bakehouse Studio *



Book Information
ISBN 9780241525067
Author Oliver Mol
Format Hardback
Page Count 272
Imprint Michael Joseph Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 392g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 144mm * 27mm