Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives: Stories [Hardcover]

Brad Watson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 2010

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

In this, his first collection of stories since his celebrated, award-winning Last Days of the Dog-Men, 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Family members who act like strangers, and characters who eat dirt, undergo strange transformations, and find themselves drawn mysteriously to bodies of water form the heart of Watson's accomplished collection, but the latest from the author of The Heaven of Mercury is much more than the sum of its strange moments. In Vacuum, three boys who are afraid their mother will leave them begin playing with razor blades and jumping off the carport roof. In Carl's Outside, neglectful parents belatedly realize their son has disappeared. In one of the most eerie pieces, Water Dog Good, a man takes in his ethereal 16-year-old niece, who has been sexually assaulted by her father and brothers. In the title story, a teenager and his pregnant girlfriend's lives unspool after an encounter with a mysterious couple who may or may not be aliens. Watson is a master at hairpin plot turns, and his characters come alive on the page with minimal backstory; readers get deep into their heads and hearts, even when the weirdness surrounding them feels like something out of a David Lynch movie. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Ward and June Cleaver have no place in Watson’s dysfunctional world of divorce, alienation, and domestic unrest. Here, eccentricity and madness are the norm, and life, even in its best moments, is unrelentingly bleak. In “Vacuum,” three precocious boys come to the aid of their beleaguered mother. In “Are You Mister Lonelee?” a despondent widower finds solace in wayward women and booze. A married couple fights so bitterly in “Terrible Argument” that the husband shoots himself in the foot. A divorced man has an awkward visit with his son, a young girl is abused by her guardian, and a woman is haunted by the memory of her stillborn child. In the title story, a newly married teenage couple’s lives are forever changed by a visit from two insane-asylum inmates. National Book Award finalist Watson’s powerful stories are a real downer, although he has moments of dark humor, like one boy’s account of his family vacation, in which a fellow traveler breaks the motel diving board and loses his toe. “It was fantastic,” the young man writes. “It made the whole trip.” --Allison Block

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 268 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (March 22, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393057119
• ISBN-13: 978-0393057119
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #90,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars where the boundaries between human, animal and otherworldly are blurred, March 17, 2010

By 

wordtron (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives: Stories (Hardcover)

a cross between raymond carver, richard ford and david lynch. each story takes a wonderfully unexpected, usually inspired weird/odd/brilliant turn. deft, moving characterizations. watson's is a world of great compassion amidst (comical) violence, where the boundaries between human, animal and otherworldly are blurred. a very unique american voice. thoroughly enjoyed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing collection of stories, June 21, 2010

By 

Kim Trevathan "Kim Trevathan" (Maryville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives: Stories (Hardcover)

These are amazingly inventive stories, beautifully written, haunting and humorous, eccentric and engaging. Every last one of these stories is powerful, worth a second reading or more. The title story is unlike anything I've read for the imaginative risks it pulls off, the places it took me as a reader. Some of my favorite moments in the collection: a woman at the end of a wild night with friends, drifts down the current of the Black Warrior River, where her husband fishes, her friends running along the bank in pursuit of her; an arrogant, showoff breaks the diving board he's springing up and down upon; a divorced father has his palm read beside a motel pool by a woman whose face is complex, unsettling, and beautiful.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brad Watson: Welcome Back, April 13, 2010

By 

M. O. Walsh "mow" (baton rouge) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives: Stories (Hardcover)

I've been waiting for something new to read from Brad Watson since Heaven of Mercury. He works slowly, and thank God. This book is good in a way that creeps on you. There's no fireworks as far as flashiness goes. Unless of course, you're a writer yourself. In that case, you'll realize that Watson is blazing trails in term of narative voice. His stories "Falen Nellie" and "Alamo Plaza" are the proof in the pudding. I love this book and recommend to readers and writers alike.