This book is about the experiences of queer Salvation Army officers. The Salvation Army declares in its international mission statement that it serves suffering humanity without discrimination, and this is demonstrably the case for those whom the movement would serve in society. The experience of queer members within the movement is not, however, defined by the mission statement and rarely correlates. Historic influences and conservative theologies in leadership and congregations strongly ...

A National Book Award FinalistBrad Watson's first novel was eagerly awaited after his breathtaking, award-winning debut collection of short stories, Last Days of the Dog-Men. In The Heaven of Mercury, Watson fulfills that literary promise with a humorous and jaundiced eye. Finus Bates has loved Birdie Wells since the day he saw her do a naked cartwheel in the woods in 1916. Later he won her at poker, lost her, then nearly won her again after the m...

"His people and dogs—those wonderful dogs!—come alive with honest, thrumming energy." — The New York Times Book ReviewWinner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers AwardIn prose so precise and beautiful it makes a reader's hair stand on end, Brad Watson writes about people and dogs: dogs as companions, as accomplices, and as unwit...

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. HomesIn 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 k...

Longlisted for the National Book Award and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year"Gorgeous…A writer of profound emotional depths." — New York Times Book ReviewSince his award-winning debut collection of stories, Last Days of the Dog-Men, Brad Watson has been expanding the literary traditions of the South in work as melancholy, witty, strange, and lovely as any in America. Drawing on the true story of his great-aunt, he explores th...

**“Watson renders the human experience with pathos and love.” —A. M. Homes, author of The UnfoldingA posthumous collection of beloved and never-before-read stories from a titan of contemporary Southern fiction.**“Here is a generous portion of the work of a swiftly passing lifetime. Bountiful is the deserving page,” Joy Williams writes in her introduction to this astonishing selection of Brad Watson’s published and unpublished stories: “excellent, assured, funny, st...

October 2010, a gorgeous foreclosed mansion in the exclusive San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Walnut Creek is auctioned off on the front steps of the Contra Costa County Courthouse. The eye-popping minimum bid of $70,000 tantalizes the crowd of bidders with an equal amount of uncertainty and confusion. Brian Taylor, a mortgage broker turned savvy real estate speculator, quietly makes the winning—and only—offer of "a penny over" the asking price. Unfortunately, this screaming deal of the ce...

Did Jesus really beat death? That’s what Christians for hundreds of years have believed, that Jesus Christ returned to life after death and burial in a stone tomb. To the modern mind, “resurrection” is utterly implausible, but it was also doubtful to many first-century Greeks, Jews, and even some Christians. With such an incredible assertion at the heart of the Christian faith, it’s no wonder that some people struggle to believe.Unlike any other book on the resurrection, Raised...

**‘**As unexpectedly beguiling as it is affecting’ – Daily MailInspired by the true story of his own great-aunt, Brad Watson tells the story of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-century Mississippi with a genital birth defect that would stand in the way of the central ‘uses’ for a woman in that time and place - namely, sex and marriage.From the country doctor who adopts Jane to the hard tactile labour of farm life, ...

Astonishing prose brings to life a forgotten woman and a lost world in a strange and bittersweet Southern pastoral. Since his award-winning debut collection of stories, Last Days of the Dog-Men, Brad Watson has been expanding the literary traditions of the South, in work as melancholy, witty, strange, and lovely as any in America. Now, drawing on the story of his own great-aunt, Watson explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-century Mississippi with a genital...

"Here is a generous portion of the work of a swiftly passing lifetime. Bountiful is the deserving page," Joy Williams writes in her introduction to this selection of Brad Watson's published and unpublished stories: "excellent, assured, funny, startling, heartbreaking, wild," full of "freakish flair" and "melancholy realism."Brad Watson was a master of dark comedy, extraordinary lyricism, appalling grotesquerie, and unabashed vulnerability; a sublime prose stylist whose novels and s...

'As unexpectedly beguiling as it is affecting.' Daily MailSince his award-winning debut collection of stories, Last Days of the Dog-Men, Brad Watson's work has been as melancholy, witty, strange, and lovely as any in America. Inspired by the true story of his own great-aunt, he explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-century Mississippi with a genital birth defect that would stand in the way of the central "uses" for...