The Heaven of Animals: Stories (First Edition)

Named one of Amazon’s Best Short Story Collections of 2014
One of Atlanta Journal Constitution’s 9 Best Books of 2014
Best Short Story Collection of the Year, Tweed's Magazine
Winner of GLCA New Writers Award for Fiction
2014 LA Times Book Prize Finalist
Winner of the Florida Book Awards Silver Medal for Fiction
Nominated for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction

In each of the stories in this remarkable debut, award-winning writer David James Poissant explores the tenuous bonds of family—fathers and sons, husbands and wives—as they are tested by the sometimes brutal power of love.

His strikingly true-to-life characters have reached a precipice, chased there by troubles of their own making. Standing at the brink, each must make a choice: Leap, or look away? Pulitzer Prize finalist Lee Martin writes that Poissant forces us “to face the people we are when we’re alone in the dark.”

From two friends racing to save the life of an alligator in “Lizard Man” to a girl helping her boy­friend face his greatest fears in “The End of Aaron,” from a man who 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 creates worlds that shine with honesty and dark complexity, but also with a profound compas­sion. These are stories hell-bent on hope.

Fresh, smart, lively, and wickedly funny, The Heaven of Animals is startlingly 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.”

"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 "

"What I admire most is David James Poissant's refusal to condescend to his characters. They are flawed but fully human, never mere caricatures but men trying to overcome the bad cards life has dealt them."--Ron Rash "New York Times bestselling author of Serena, Burning Bright, and The Cove "

"Poissant is a first-rate storyteller who has an appreciation for the absurd turns of events that press down into all we try to keep buried until we have no choice but to face the people we are when we re alone in the dark. By turns, funny and heartbreaking, Lizard Man has teeth and enough bite to grab onto you and not let go."--Lee Martin "Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Break the Skin and The Bright Forever "

"Jamie Poissant will end up being his generation's Richard Ford: his fiction is full of big ideas, of startling insights into how we live now; and his writing is so smart, so sensitive and self-deprecating and full of empathy. He is one of our very best young writers. I know, know that we will be talking about him for years and years to come."--Brock Clarke "author of Exley, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, and The Ordinary White Boy "

"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 "

"There is much to admire in David James Poissant's excellent debut story collection. His men and women are never mere caricatures.They are flawed but fully human and their stories are compelling and true to life's complexities. There is a refreshing lack of glibness in his work; he is a serious writer and these are serious stories."--Ron Rash "New York Times bestselling author of Serena and Nothing Gold Can Stay "

"David James Poissant will end up being his generation's Richard Ford: his fiction is full of big ideas, of startling insights into how we live now; and his writing is so smart, so sensitive and self-deprecating and full of empathy. He is one of our very best young writers. I know, know that we will be talking about him for years and years to come."--Brock Clarke "author of Exley, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, and The Ordinary White Boy "

""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 "

Masterful...Poissant's gift of fiction writing [is] a great big gift. So big that it stretches the short story form a bit; he turns typical short story writing pitfalls into strengths...You can move among William Faulkner, Harry Crews, and Flannery O'Connor to find the muscle that is in ["Lizard Man"] (and many of the others here), and among Eudora Welty, Lee Smith, and Jill McCorkle for the tenderness....A great strength of this collection: Though many of the characters are not like us readers one bit (some are) Poissant shows us how much alike we all are--as fathers, mothers, friends, children, liars, and lovers--no matter our pedigree....Poissant can do the seemingly impossible...I hear a novel is on the way. Look out.--Clyde Edgerton "Garden & Gun "

The much-anthologized Poissant justifies his status as a favorite of the literary quarterlies with this debut collection of unsparing yet warmly empathetic stories.... Rueful and kind, akin to both Anton Chekhov and Raymond Carver in humane spirit and technical mastery.--Kirkus (Starred Review)