Synopses & Reviews
In this, his first collection of stories since his celebrated, award-winning Last Days of the Dog-Men, Brad Watson relates the brutality of human experience with unique genius and tenderness, delving into the lives of ordinary characters stricken by loneliness, longing, frustration, and the lure of better worlds.
In harmonious prose, Watson writes about every kind of domestic discord. In “Vacuum,” three young brothers make trouble when they call on the seedy neighborhood doctor to cheer up their under-appreciated mother. Originally published in The New Yorker, “Visitation” follows a down-and-out, divorced father as he spends a weekend with his son at a California motel. A husband shoots himself in the foot in “The Terrible Argument,” letting down not only his wife but his dog as well. In the masterful title novella, a freshly married, disastrously mismatched, and expectant young couple are visited by an unusual pair of patients from a nearby insane asylum, who just might be—or might as well be—aliens from another planet.
Brad Watson writes with such an all-seeing, six-dimensional view of human hopes and inadequacies that his talent must come from another planet. With wry humor and otherworldly grace, he reminds us how alien we humans really are—to each other and to ourselves.
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"Consistently delivers that elusive element great Southern writers have always brought to the table--a delicious sense of the unexpected." Kirkus Reviews
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Brad Watson’s stories are precise, humane, darkly comic, and surprisingly urgent. Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives is another triumph in his brilliant body of work. --Jonathan Wilson, author of
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Brad Watson’s stories worm their way through you. Watson’s talent is singular, truly awesome; he reminds me of Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Chris Offutt in his bravery, his unflinching willingness to look at what might set others running. And yet these are not exactly dark stories—that is part of their magic, they are infused with an uncanny beauty in which, even at the most god-awful moments, something is salvaged. --Jill Ciment, author of
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Brad Watson has the gift of seeing both the humor and humanity in even the most compromised lives. In precise, surprising prose and gorgeously turned sentences, Watson builds twelve darkly funny and indelible stories full of characters—long on impulse, short on instinct—who ask for and receive not only our forgiveness but also our deep recognition. --A. M. Homes, author of
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Unlike hundreds of poseurs, Mr. Watson knows the real South and is not cute in proving it. The book is deft and real and hard to put down. --Pam Houston, author of
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Brad Watson’s sad, tender stories render weirdly luminous the everyday ugly settings where men and women drift mystified by grief. What comes next but surprising deliverance in gusts of wonder and humor. In these moving stories beats a great and hurting heart. --Padget Powell, author of
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Starred Review. [U]nforgettable characters.... Essential reading and highly recommended. --Christine Schutt, author of
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Powerful stories.Consistently delivers that elusive element great Southern writers have always brought to the table—a delicious sense of the unexpected.Essential reading and highly recommended.Watson is a master at hairpin plot turns, and his characters come alive on the page.Precise, surprising . . . gorgeously turned sentences. --Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness
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"Powerful stories." Booklist
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"Essential reading and highly recommended." Library Journal
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"Watson is a master at hairpin plot turns, and his characters come alive on the page." Publishers Weekly
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"Precise, surprising . . . gorgeously turned sentences." Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness
Synopsis
In this, his first collection of stories since his celebrated, award-winning , Brad Watson takes us even deeper into the riotous, appalling, and mournful oddity of human beings. In prose so perfectly pitched as to suggest some celestial harmony, he writes about every kind of domestic discord: unruly or distant children, alienated spouses, domestic abuse, loneliness, death, divorce. In his masterful title novella, a freshly married teenaged couple are visited by an unusual pair of inmates from a nearby insane asylum--and find out exactly how mismatched they really are. With exquisite tenderness, Watson relates the brutality of both nature and human nature. There's no question about it. Brad Watson writes so well--with such an all-seeing, six-dimensional view of human hopes, inadequacies, and rare grace--that he must be an extraterrestrial.
Synopsis
Dark and brilliant tales capturing the strangeness of human (and almost-human) life.
Synopsis
Finalist for the 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: "Watson's talent is singular, truly awesome; [his stories] are infused with an uncanny beauty."--A. M. Homes
About the Author
Brad Watson teaches creative writing at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. His first collection, Last Days of the Dog-Men, won the Sue Kauffman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts & Letters; his first novel, The Heaven of Mercury, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and his Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.