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the long cloud by Hector Mackenzie

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I had been a male model since I moved to London and initially I was making lots of money and then suddenly I wasn’t making any.

Xander is ageing out. A former high school jock turned model, he’s spent a decade in London riding a carousel of validation and success. Now the ride is slowing down.

When his much-more-successful actor girlfriend, Tessa K, buys him a plane ticket home to New Zealand for the first time in ten years, Xander returns as a stranger. The family farm is for sale. His mother is overbearing. His high school ex wants to reconnect. And his life is unravelling.

Then he meets someone younger, someone vibrant and unburdened, who makes him fall back in love with the small town he fled. But is she the cure for his problems or just another symptom of how empty his life has become?

In the long cloud, newcomer Hector Mackenzie captures the anxious rhythm of life in the 20s - a tender, often funny meditation on masculinity, beauty, and mortality that proves you might be able to go home, but you can never truly go back.

“A timely, timeless book about leaving and returning, failure and success, ambivalence and disappearance, things and people left behind. It’s funny, snarky, touching, and profound.”
-Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick

“Over the weekend I read an arc of the long cloud by Hector Mackenzie and ADORED it. Sparse, funny, modern. Opens with a nihilistic vibe that reminded me of Less Than Zero until it very much doesn’t. Funny and relatable musings on self-perception/masculinity/relationships and an ending that really shocked me. One of my favourite reads of the year so far!!!”
-Matt Rohloff, NZ Marketing Executive

From the Author

“It’s about irrelevance mostly. Or the perception of irrelevance. Feeling like a failure. And wanting something or some place or someone to save him from that feeling. I also wanted to try and portray what it’s like for young men right now. What we think about. What we worry about. What we dream about. Stuff like that.

I hope you enjoy it. I hope you find it refreshing. And I hope you find it amusing. And if you do (and even if you don’t?) you should give it to your son or your brother or your boyfriend or your husband to read after. Because we all need more men reading. Or they need it. Either way literature is the answer. At least it was for me.”
- Hector Mackenzie

Praise for The Long Cloud

“Written in a sparse, stream-of-conscious style, it’s a refreshingly candid and raw portrayal of modern masculinity.”

“We loved Xander’s poetic observations about the waning of youth and his often hilarious inner thoughts.”

“It’s the kind of book that gets under your skin and lingers. A stunning debut from an author we will be watching.”
- WellRead Editorial

Join the discussion: Book Club Questions for The Long Cloud.

Readers & Their WellRead Moments