Customer Reviews

The Heaven of Mercury: A Novel

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The concept of heaven - whether one believes it exists or not - is one that has as many facets as there are souls to discuss it. Alice Sebold depicted one vision of it beautifully and brilliantly in her novel THE LOVELY BONES - Brad Watson has given us another literary treasure that touches the reader's heart just as deeply in his first novel, THE HEAVEN OF MERCURY.

Watson's book is, of course, about much more than an individual's vision and experience of heaven - it is a finely wrought, rich tapestry that gives us a living, breathing view of Southern life (although so much of what its characters feel and experience is universal), one that touches on emotions and truths so deeply, yet gently, that we know them as if they were our own. His writing is awesomely beautiful, yet honest and forthright - there is no superficiality here, and I never got the feeling that even a single word was put there to impress the reader. Watson is telling a story that he feels in his soul - and has filled this novel with characters that are so real that their presence can be felt in the room.

One of the beauties of his prose is how easily it rolls along, bearing not only the story and characters, but the reader as well, along with it. I found myself re-reading many a passage in wonder, amazed that I had traveled its length to arrive at the end, almost unaware of the journey. In developing his characters in the reader's mind's eye, the author employs incredibly distinctive voices - distinctive not only for their speech and thoughts, but in the narrative surrounding them.

What seems at first to be a surreal quality to Watson's writing reveals itself, upon further consideration, to actually be more of an `ultra-reality' - people, events, emotions and settings are placed so close to the reader's perception that they seem blurred and bent, adding to the mystical/mythical qualities of the tale. The characters' lives are seen not just through their own memories, but also through the memories of those around them, giving varied slants on events they hold in common - personal v. universal memory. Watson's depiction of the `heaven' or `hell' we experience after death - those of specific souls often overlapping - is presented in much the same fashion. It's a concept that might seem self-contradictory until one sees it laid out so beautifully and skillfully, in the context of the story - viewed thusly, it makes perfect and natural sense.

The story itself centers on the life of one Finus Bates - from his early years to the end of his life - and his life-long love for Birdie Wells. Theirs is a deep, close friendship - and a star-crossed love. The book follows their lives - and the lives of other citizens of the fictional town of Mercury, Mississippi - in non-chronological but perfectly sensible order, through friendships, marriages (each to another partner), trials, tribulations, and the ins and outs of everyday life. Far from being a boring picture of mundane lives in a small Southern town, THE HEAVEN OF MERCURY is a luminous portrayal of memorable individuals living through times of great change - from the early 20th century to the present day. As in most stories set in the South in these decades, race is definitely one of the players - and Watson tells it like it was (and is), doing so with great respect and love for all of those involved. As ugly as some of the things that have happened around the race issue might be, they must be viewed in an honest light if we are to learn from them. Only when we settle with the past can we advance.

THE HEAVEN OF MERCURY is an incredible reading experience - one that I can heartily recommend, full to the brim with amazingly good writing. I first read an excerpt from this novel (the chapter `The dead girl') that was included in the wonderful collection STORIES FROM THE BLUE MOON CAFÉ. I subsequently read Brad Watson's short story collection LAST DAYS OF THE DOG MEN (both highly recommended as well). The talent and promise I saw in these didn't lead me astray - this is an amazing novel (especially for a first effort), and I look forward to reading more.

It is so wonderful in our time to find something of such beauty, subtlety and richness as Brad Watson's Heaven of Mercury. The characters and scenes become part of your memory. There is a non-cliche understanding of the South that can only come from a person that is truly in touch with that place and history. Watson taps into all the dimensions of the human condition, with a comic edge like a razor blade. It is quite rare that I read a book that literally leaves me breathless. Brad Watson is one of the greats in the next generation of Southern writers. Thank you and bravo!

This is one of the most beautiful books I've read in ages. Based on some of the reviews below, this is definitely a love it or hate it book. I'll tell you this much: if you love good fiction with pitch-perfect prose and dead-on dialogue, then this is the novel for you. Everyone says it reminds them of Faulkner or Marquez but this is completely original writing that gets to the meat of the human heart (no pun intended, as a human heart is actually a pivotal plot point). If you like formulaic writing and stitled dialogue this is not the book for you. You should read books like this, though. They're good for you. One of the best books of the year, if not THE best.

Wonderful discriptive writing. It takes a bit to get use to the author's syntax and punctuation peculiarities, but once you get over that, it is rather fun and refreshing. This work does have it's own rhythm and I rather like that. I like the way the author has take very "ordinary" people, and told a story, proving again, that there is merit and a tale in every life. I suppose many may be a bit put off as the the fact that the characters are not all that different from you and me, but that is one of the strong point of the work, I feel. I could not find one character in the book, that I have not meet in "real life" and that was kind of nice. I highly recommend this read and hope we get more of the same.

Brad Watson's The Heaven of Mercury is set near Faulkner country, both geographically and literarily. Mercury, Mississippi, is undeniably Gothic territory. The book contains mysterious deaths, mismatched lovers, ghosts, voodoo, and necrophilia. In an early scene, one lavished with lovingly elaborate description, young Birdie Wells is surprised by her first moment of sexual release while innocently straddling Bertram, the family dog, during a family gathering around the fireplace. She cries out, and then embarrassed and confused, claims the gentle old dog bit her. I don't think the act technically qualifies as bestiality because the girl is surprised by what happens and the dog's asleep. Still, it's close enough to make me wonder-and the showily precise evocation of the scene is enough to make me nervous. Birdie's two younger sisters, less innocent than she, immediately understand what has happened, and they tease her about it with wicked glee. "Giddyup," one of them whispers, and the two sisters run off giggling, while Birdie, reverting to childhood petulance, can only whisper, "You just shut up, the both of you."
That last exchange captures what's unique about The Heaven of Mercury: how canny and sweet it is. The dark Gothic convention is evoked, indulged, then neatly sidestepped, and the tension is transmuted to broad comedy as the sisters childishly snipe at each other. Even necrophilia is not played for creeps. When the undertaker's son has intimate relations with the body of a schoolmate, the perversion turns into a life-giving act of love that jostles the girl out of her coma. She awakens, rises, and, draped with a sheet, walks out of the funeral home. Instead of coarsening the boy's attitude toward the corpses he works with when he takes over the family business, his one transgression in fact deepens his sense of spiritual commitment to his work.

The Heaven of Mercury possesses as sharp an ear for Southern speech, both black and white, as any novel published in the last thirty years--and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

What can anybody say about the silly reviewer who referred to the people who blurbed the book as "locally famous no-name book blurbers." The blurbers are Barry Hannah, Fred Chappell, Margot Livesey, Richard Bausch, and Gregory Rabassa. Anybody who thinks these fine writers are "locally famous no-name book blurbers," doesn't know what she's talking about.

Many readers and reviewers have mentioned William Faulkner in discussing this magnificent first novel, but the comparison is misleading. While Faulkner's brilliance rolls over us in what sometimes feels like an unregulated rant, Watson's polished prose carries us along with it in a rush of dreamlike precision. Surprising, illuminating, dark and funny, this is the novel that everybody's been trying to write.

Many of the negative reviews here seem focused on the disjointed narrative or - unbelievably - a supposed lack of plot. Perhaps those readers would be better served by the latest Patricia Cornwell novel, complete with inciting incident, rising action, climax, etc., all told in linear fashion, each event telegraphed to the reader by the event before it. I don't doubt that these same readers struggled through "plotless" books like The Sound and the Fury or Joseph Heller's Something Happened.

Watson is a subtle storyteller who reveals the truth about his characters through a few well-chosen stories from their lives, each rendered in pitch-perfect prose. He does not feel compelled to give us a summation of each character's entire life history, nor does he show us the entire internal world of every person in the book, and for that he is beaten up by readers who apparently are unfamiliar with Hemingway's iceberg principle.
As to the charge that the relationship between a black housemaid and her employer was drawn without subtlety, nothing could be further from the truth. If anything, this was one of the most nuanced and deeply-felt examples of human connection (or lack thereof) in the novel.
Most of the readers who lambasted the story in the novel at least gave Watson credit for his brilliant writing style, so I won't add anything there.
If you treasure southern literature, stories of abiding love, or ruminations on life, death and the hereafter, order this book now.

I Can't think when I've read a book that moved me more, grounded me so in the richness of love in life and affirmed the intuited connectedness of all creaturely existance. This book is the heaven of wherever you are when you read it. (And while you are in the vicinity get a copy of his short story collection "Last Days of the Dog-Men"}!

Hyped where? I only found it because I was at Amazon looking for something new by *Larry* Watson, and this book came up on the "People also bought . . . " feature.

In fact, if I'd seen it at a bookstore, I'd have passed it up because of the back cover blurbs -- they made it sound like a writer's book more than a reader's book. It's not. The writing's good, sure, but never so pretty that it takes you out of the book, makes you remember you're reading.

You'll be glad you read this book. It won't change your life, but it *will* add to your enjoyment of it.

It's one of those books that will make you smile and cry and be glad that there are people who look at things differently and who have the talent to share their vision and experience.

This author, a creative writing instructor, hits the jackpot with his luscious descriptive ability. That is almost, but not quite, enough to carry the reader happily through the convoluted and generally boring lives of his main characters, Finus and Birdie. In regards to form, Mr. Watson's interesting insistence on omitting quotation makes the dialogue refresing, thoug a little difficult to follow, and on at least one occasion I read two entire pages before I could figure out which character the narrative was about. In retrospect, a semi-satisfying work that needs a real story line and decent conflict resolution rather than just petering out in the end when everybody get around to dying.