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2004 Nominated

The Heaven of Mercury

Brad Watson

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ABOUT
THE BOOK

Finus Bates has loved chatty, elegant Birdie Wells ever since he saw her cartwheel naked through the woods near the backwater town of Mercury, Mississippi, in 1917. Having ‘caught hold of some loose line in her that would attach itself to stray wildness’ and never let go, he’s loved her for some eighty years: through their marriages to other people; through the mysterious early death of Birdie’s womanising husband, Earl; and through all the poisonous accusations against Birdie by Earl’s no-good relatives.

Brad Watson

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Brad
Watson

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 and 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.

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 and 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.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
United States
Original Language
English
Author
Brad Watson
Publisher
W.W.Norton & Co.
Nominating Library
San Francisco Public Library - USA

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