A Million Heavens

On the top floor of a small hospital, an unlikely piano prodigy lies in a coma, attended to by his gruff, helpless father. Outside the clinic, a motley vigil assembles beneath a reluctant New Mexico winter - strangers in search of answers, a brush with the mystical, or just an escape. To some the boy is a novelty, to others a religion. Just beyond this ragtag circle roams a disconsolate wolf on his nightly rounds, protecting and threatening, learning too much. And above them all, a would-be angel sits captive in a holding cell of the afterlife, finishing the work he began on earth, writing the songs that could free him. This unlikely assortment - a small-town mayor, a vengeful guitarist, all the unseen desert lives - unites to weave a persistently hopeful story of improbable communion.

Upon the release of John Brandon's last novel, CITRUS COUNTY, the New York Times declared that he 'joins the ranks of writers like Denis Johnson, Joy Williams, Mary Robison and Tom Drury.' Now, with A MILLION HEAVENS, Brandon brings his deadpan humor and hard-won empathy to a new realm of gritty surrealism - a surprising and exciting turn from one of the best young novelists of our time.

“Wondrous... More than once I handed A Million Heavens to a friend and watched the rhythms compel him or her into the thickness of a paragraph, then onto the next page.... I had to stop reading to actually pace, marvelling at what one writer can imagine, what a novel is capable of holding”

[John Brandon] deftly renders a desert wilderness where human hearts are compelled to seek isolation from the pains of the world, but tend to find connectedness despite themselves - Publishers Weekly

A surreal exploration of the origin of inspiration, of what connects humans to each other and to their surroundings. ...Brandon's gift for conjuring a powerful sense of place has never been stronger as the high-desert sands invade every nook and cranny of the lives of his characters - Booklist

Wondrous... More than once I handed A Million Heavens to a friend and watched the rhythms compel him or her into the thickness of a paragraph, then onto the next page.... I had to stop reading to actually pace, marvelling at what one writer can imagine, what a novel is capable of holding - New York Times Book Review

John Brandon is my favourite new writer. This is a writer to watch, to reread, and to envy - Tom Franklin

John Brandon was raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida and has worked at a lumber mill, a windshield warehouse and a Coca-Cola distributor. Acclaim for his first novel, Arkansas, led to his appointment as John and Renee Grisham Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi.

On the top floor of a small hospital, an unlikely piano prodigy lies in a coma, attended to by his gruff, helpless father. Outside the clinic, a motley vigil assembles beneath a reluctant New Mexico winter - strangers in search of answers, a brush with the mystical, or just an escape. To some the boy is a novelty, to others a religion. Just beyond this ragtag circle roams a disconsolate wolf on his nightly rounds, protecting and threatening, learning too much. And above them all, a would-be angel sits captive in a holding cell of the afterlife, finishing the work he began on earth, writing the songs that could free him. This unlikely assortment - a small-town mayor, a vengeful guitarist, all the unseen desert lives - unites to weave a persistently hopeful story of improbable communion.Upon the release of John Brandon's last novel, CITRUS COUNTY, the New York Times declared that he 'joins the ranks of writers like Denis Johnson, Joy Williams, Mary Robison and Tom Drury.' Now, with A MILLION HEAVENS, Brandon brings his deadpan humor and hard-won empathy to a new realm of gritty surrealism - a surprising and exciting turn from one of the best young novelists of our time.

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