{"product_id":"book-ix46","title":"There Is Happiness","description":"\"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is the deserving page,\" Joy Williams writes in her introduction to this selection of Brad Watson's published and unpublished stories: \"excellent, assured, funny, startling, heartbreaking, wild,\" full of \"freakish flair\" and \"melancholy realism.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBrad Watson was a master of dark comedy, extraordinary lyricism, appalling grotesquerie, and unabashed vulnerability; a sublime prose stylist whose novels and stories drew upon the fecundity and moodiness of the South. Male meltdown is a theme, as is young love and its disillusionment, as are strange neighbors who cannot be understood. A leopard that consumes its zookeeper, pronghorn antelope tenderly transporting the poop of their young, insufferably articulate birds and restless, tolerant dogs—this is also eco-fiction of a very peculiar sort, in which nature reassures, transcends, and finally escapes judging or being judged by us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRoller-coastering from the mournful to the comical, Watson's work is both embedded in a literary heritage tied to place and at home in a universal literature of the absurd. His stories waltz with lovely and strange melancholy, infused with wit and astonishing beauty. \u003ci\u003eThere Is Happiness\u003c\/i\u003e embodies the twisted hilarity and undeniable grace of an underrecognized literary genius.","brand":"Tantor","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49350679101744,"sku":"BDix46","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio CD","offer_id":49350679134512,"sku":"ZEix46","price":49.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio MP3-CD","offer_id":49350679167280,"sku":"ZMix46","price":45.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/ix46-Square-cover.jpg?v=1780484459","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-ix46","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}