THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS
Book ID/图书代码： 02330013B64444
English Summary/英文概要： In this masterful debut, an award-winning writer and first-rate storyteller explores the tenuous bonds of family—fathers and sons, husbands and wives—as they are tested by the sometimes brutal power of love.
In each of the stories in this remarkable collection, David James Poissant delivers a moving portrayal of a relationship in turmoil. His strikingly true-to-life characters have reached a precipice, chased there by troubles of their own making. Some stand frightened, some ready to fight. Some seek atonement, others the atonement that is owed them. But, brought to the brink, each must make a choice: Leap, or look away?
Lee Martin writes that Poissant forces us “to face the people we are when we’re alone in the dark,” and, from the two men racing to save the life of a sick alligator in “Lizard Man” to the girl helping her boyfriend face his greatest fears in “The End of Aaron,” from a son grieving his father in “100% Cotton” as he stalks death on an Atlanta street corner to a brother’s surprise at the surreal, improbable beauty of a late night encounter with a wolf, Poissant’s invented worlds shine with honesty and dark complexity, but also with a profound compassion. These are stories hell-bent on hope.
Fresh, smart, lively—and often wickedly funny—The Heaven of Animals is breathtakingly original and compulsively readable. As bestselling author Kevin Wilson puts it, “Poissant is a writer who knows us with such clarity that we wonder how he found his way so easily into our hearts and souls.”
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 在这部巧妙的处女作中，获奖作家同时也是首屈一指的故事叙事者--本书作者，将带领我们深入探索有关于家庭成员之间微妙且脆弱的联系---父亲与儿子，丈夫与妻子---尤其是当他们都面对着有些狂暴的爱的考验时。
在这部精彩选集的每一个小故事中，大卫•詹姆斯•博伊森特都为我们刻画出一段陷入混乱之中感人关系。他笔下栩栩如生的人物形象们总是被他们自己制造的麻烦逼入绝境。在悬崖之巅，有人颤栗的不敢移动分毫，有些却准备好为此拼搏，有人寻求救赎，而另一些则应该获得救赎。然而无论如何，身处崖颠的人们都必须做出他们的选择：是勇敢的大步一跃，抑或是左右迟疑，选择逃避？
李•马丁称博伊森特用他的方式“迫使我们在黑暗之中显现出我们原来的样子”，从两名男子与时间赛跑，只为救治一只短吻鳄，到一名帮助男友直面最大恐惧来源的女友；从一名因其父亲是一名彻头彻尾的“棉花人”，而在亚特兰大的街角里走向死亡的儿子，到一名男子在深夜偶遇了一只狼，并深深为其美丽所震惊与折服，博伊森特为我们编造出一个闪耀的诚实与黑暗的复杂世界，但其中却满溢着深刻的情感。这些是一个个盈满了希望的故事。
清新、睿智同时无比鲜活---时而透露着些许邪恶的小乐趣---《动物天堂》是一部会令你叹为观止的原创作品，你将情不自禁地为其所深深吸引。正如畅销书作家凯文•威尔森对本书的评价：“博伊森特清楚的了解我们每一个人，我们不禁自问，他究竟是如何轻易地击中我们每个人内心与灵魂的最深处的。”（DC）
Awards/获奖情况：“The Heaven of Animals is an extraordinary debut from Florida author David James Poissant--a Venn diagram of the miraculous and the absurd. Like Flannery O’Connor, Poissant’s stories are marked by violence, humor, and grace; like Saunders, Poissant can spoon-bend reality; like Carver and Diaz, he writes scenes soaked in kerosene and seconds from combustion. In these pages you’ll find charming reprobates and self-deluded hustlers, young lovers, alligators and dead dogs, fathers and sons, all the warped love of family, the batshit hilarity of the South, and the ’geometry" of loss.’"
(Karen Russell Pulitzer Prize-finalist author of Swamplandia)
"Wow. David James Poissant has written a fantastic, beguiling book. Often offbeat and always enthralling, The Heaven of Animals seduces the reader, again and again, with our weird, urgent attempts to understand each other. These stories lure the loners and romantics out of America’s backwaters, then march them into the moonlight to break your heart."
(Claire Vaye Watkins author of Battleborn)
“Wild as two men wrestling an alligator, tender as a father stretching out on the floor next to his sleeping son, the stories in The Heaven of Animals will make you stop and wonder. David James Poissant digs deep until he reaches the heart of each tale, unearthing unexpected connections with his vivid and graceful prose. These men and women, parents and children, all stand at the precipice of loss, and in their final moments, reach out for each other.”
(Hannah Tinti author of The Good Thief)
"It’s not often you read stories with this much range, precision, power, and emotional depth in a first collection. It’s not like a "first collection" at all, in fact. This is beautiful, exciting, accomplished work. David James Poissant is one of the best-of-the-best new writers out there, and I have no doubt there’s a lot more to come."
(Brad Watson award-winning author of The Heaven of Mercury and Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives)
"A character in “Lizard Man” has tattoos that, if you look closely, secretly hold another image in the design. David James Poissant’s writing has that same effect, the initial and wonderful strangeness giving way, slowly but surely, to something deeper, something difficult, something beautiful. Poissant is a writer who knows us with such clarity that we wonder how he found his way so easily into our hearts and souls."
(Kevin Wilson New York Times bestselling author of The Family Fang and Tunneling to the Center of the Earth)
"David James Poissant is one of our finest young writers, with a taut and subtle prose style, a deep knowledge of craft, and a heart so vast it encompasses whole worlds. I read his fiction and became a lifelong fan; I promise that you will too."
(Lauren Groff author of Arcadia, The Monsters of Templeton, and Delicate Edible Birds)
About the Author/作者介绍： 大卫•詹姆斯•博伊森特的作品如今已出现在包括《大西洋》《花花公子》《一个故事》《南方评论》《闪光列车》《南方新谈》及《美国最佳之声新选》 在内的诸多报刊杂志之上。其作品已为其赢得了马特•克拉克奖、罗普沃克小说民谣集奖、乔治•伽略特小说奖以及国家艺术文字协会授予的爱丽丝•怀特•瑞福斯纪念奖，此外，他还荣获由《芝加哥论坛报》《大西洋》及《花花公子》所颁发的其他奖项。
目前，作者在中佛罗里达大学教授美术硕士课程，他与妻子及女儿们居住在奥兰多。
David James Poissant’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Playboy, One Story, The Southern Review, Glimmer Train, and in the New Stories from the South and Best New American Voices anthologies. His writing has been awarded the Matt Clark Prize, the RopeWalk Fiction Chapbook Prize, the George Garrett Fiction Award, and the Alice White Reeves Memorial Award from the National Society of Arts & Letters, as well as awards from the Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic, and Playboy.
He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida and lives in Orlando with his wife and daughters.
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Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：Foreign rights licensed to Albin Michel (France), Edhasa Argentina (Spanish/LA), Enne &Enne (Italy)
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