Brad Watson, The Heaven of Mercury (W.W. Norton & Company)
Set deep in the American South, this debut novel spans 80 years in the life of Mercury, Mississippi, as it evolves from sleepy backwater to a small city. Mercury's changing landscape and cast of characters enrich the tale of the lifelong and complicated friendship between Finus Bates and his love, Birdie Wells.

Brad Watson was born in Meridian, Mississippi, studied at Mississippi State University and received an MFA from the University of Alabama. He has been a newspaper reporter on the Alabama and Florida Gulf coasts, an English instructor, and a creative writing teacher at Harvard. His short fiction has been published in Story, Black Warrior Review, Greensboro Review and Dog Stories. His short story collection, Last Days of the Dog-Men, won a Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He and his family live in Pensacola, Florida, where he teaches at the University of West Florida.