Things I generally don't like: --Contemporary Southern authors who seem to consciously mine Faulkner in writing about the south--Contemporary writers those who explore the racial tensions of the 20th century Deep South. --Writing about the afterlife and the communion of the living and the dead. --Prose that lends itself to being called "lyrical." Things Brad Watson does very well in this novel: --Mine Faulkner, Flannery, Ms. Welty, et al. --Explore pre-and-post Civil Rights era race relations in Mississippi.--Blend life and death and present a dream-like afterlife of sorts that renders life itself more poignant. --Write genuinely lyrical prose without it seeming like a self-conscious affectation. This book is as good as virtually anything contemporary I've read. Watson has created a handful of characters--crochety old Finus Bates, and the romantic necrophiliac Parnell Grimes are the best examples--that are as memorable as any in the long history of Southern lit. The thing that sets this one apart from the crowd is the subtle sense of magic realism that infuses it, done so deftly that it seems natural and never self-conscious. The novel has a few lags, a tendency to wander a little too long down its own twisting paths, but overall it's brilliant.
A gorgeous, lush, lyrical novel, THE HEAVEN OF MERCURY is ostensibly the story of Finus Bates and his life-long love of Birdie Wells, whom he's loved since he was merely twelve years old and chanced to see her do a naked cartwheel. But more than that, this is the story of the tiny town of Mercury, Alabama, and the generations that pass through it. It's a lovely and poetic read. The final chapter alone is like one long prose poem. Watson is a southern writer in the vein of Faulkner and Welty, a storyteller whose lyrical language is tempered by his deep understanding of people and places. I can't recommend this book highly enough: five stars.
Do You like book The Heaven Of Mercury (2002)?
Good God. This thing was epic. Just over 300p and still Watson fits an entire universe in here. There are bits of wisdom in here that are kind of flooring. Sure, it's Faulkneresque but it's not that difficult. Very southern. Traces the life of one character in particular, from birth to (no spoilers), though not in any particularly linear order, with a bunch of other characters along the way, who also get a great deal of attention. Just perfectly balanced, writing itself is good if not mind-bendingly good, well structured . . . excellent book for sure.
—Paul
Brad Watson, National Book Award finalist and my professor, wrote the hell out of this. It's lovely in the ranging, lolling quality of the prose--how everything is infused with the characters' bewilderment and sadness. It's great. It will make you want to go to the beach and eat boiled shrimp. It will make you want to write the shit out of your childhood memories, infusing all of them unabashedly with the longing your adult self has for a few particular happy younger moments, when your own childhood self was incapable of longing because everything was present and perfect, even if it really wasn't. He loves his subject matter, you can tell, because he tries to fit the whole world into it.
—Katie
