Brad Watson
Major Works
- Last Days of the Dog-Men: Stories 1996
- The Heaven of Mercury 2002
- Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives
2010
----------------------------------------------------------
Brad Watson: A Biography
By Travis Campbell (SHS)
Brad Watson, born to Robert Earl Watson and Bonnie Clay Watson
in Meridian, Mississippi, on July 24, 1955, published
his first work, a collection of short stories called
Last Days of the Dog-Men, and won a Sue Kaufman Prize
for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters.
However, Watson did not start out to become a writer.
He was a high-school student/actor who married the summer
of his junior year in high school. At seventeen, after graduating
from high school, Brad Watson left Mississippi with the hope
of making a name for himself in Hollywood. His stay in Hollywood,
however, was not long because there was a strike. After finding
work only as a garbage man (which was a job he loved because
of the solitude it provided him), Watson came home to Meridian
where he got a job as a carpenter.
Finally, after some persuasion from his family, Watson enrolled
at Meridian Junior College, a turning point in Watson's life.
Because he scored high on the entrance English exam, he was
placed in an Honors English class. Although Watson had no previous
interest in writing, this class turned him on.
Watson decided to further his education at Mississippi State
University in 1976 by majoring in English. During Watson's first
summer at Mississippi State, he wrote his first short story.
In 1978, after graduating from Mississippi State with a bachelor's
degree in English, Watson enrolled at the University of Alabama
where he pursued a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and
American Literature. He then moved to the Alabama gulf coast
to work as a newspaper reporter for a couple of years. He also
worked as an editor at the Montgomery
Advertiser and spent a year in an
ad agency before returning to Tuscaloosa to teach in 1988. He
moved there with his wife and three-year-old son and taught
creative writing at the University of Alabama.
Before he completed Last Days
of the Dog-Men: Stories by Brad Watson in 1996,
Watson had also worked in the University of Alabama public relations
office for four years. Watson says the inspiration for writing
stories about dogs and people came from his childhood.
He said everyone he knew had a dog and he related the dog’s
personality with the owners.
Returning to full time teaching, Watson moved to Harvard in
1997 to teach. He taught there until his second book, a novel
called Heaven of Mercury, was published
in 2002. Originally, the book was
to be called Obituary of Helen Browning Wells.
Following the publication of his novel,
he took visiting writer-in-residence positions at the University
of West Florida, the University of Alabama, Ole Miss (as Grisham
Writer-in-Residence), and the University of California, Irvine.
In 2005 Brad Watson began teaching at the University of Wyoming
in the MFA program where he continues to teach in 2009.
A new book, a novella and stories titled Aliens
in the Prime of Their Lives, will be published
by W.W. Norton (also the publishers of his first two books)
in March 2010. These stories have been published in The
Oxford American, The Yalobusha Review, Greensboro Review, Idaho
Review, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.
RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Review
of The Last Days of the Dog-Men
by Travis Campbell (SHS)
The Last Days of the Dog-Men
by Brad Watson is a collection of short stories about dogs and their
relationships with mankind. Watson writes of dogs as companions who
have the innocence of children yet the intelligence of wise, old men.
Watson's stories of honorable dogs seem realistic. Two short stories
that I especially enjoyed are "Seeing Eye" and "A Blessing." "Seeing
Eye" is a short story about a seeing-eye dog named Buck. One morning
Buck walks up to a street corner and stops. On the other side of the
street, a traffic signal flashes the words "Don't Walk." Buck sees this
sign but pays little attention because Buck is trained to watch for
moving traffic and to take care of his master. Throughout the story
Buck notices different things about his surroundings but is never
distracted, thus doing his job. Several symbols can be found in the
story. Many distractions such as the rushing traffic, the squeaking of
the cars, the flashing lights, people talking, and smells from a nearby
factory are all symbols of society's ability to distract someone. Buck
is very much a symbol also. Buck may clearly be interpreted as an
orderly figure, one not subdued by the activity of his surroundings.
Buck shows his maturity and poise by remaining calm. The street that
Buck and his master are trying to cross also has its own symbolic
meaning. . It symbolizes the obstacles that people have to go through
in everyday life. 
Another
short story, "A Blessing" by Brad Watson, is about a married couple
making a trip to get a dog. This story takes place in Birmingham,
Alabama. As the couple arrives at the house, three dogs run up to the
car barking and wagging their tails. When the woman and her husband get
out of the car, a man comes outside and begins to talk with them. There
are three dogs: a big, thick-coated shepherd-husky mix, a medium-sized
short hair mutt with white and brown splotches, and a smaller dog that
is a mixed collie. While talking with the man, the lady and her husband
bend over to play with the dogs. The two bigger dogs block the smaller
collie. In an attempt to gain attention, the collie tries to get in
between the two bigger dogs. The white and brown dog doesn't like this
move, so a fight breaks out. Next, the collie bites the mutt's neck,
and the turbulence occurs. The man tries to separate the two dogs by
shooting one, but the woman screams, so he doesn't. However, he takes
the two dogs to the lake and drowns the collie. Watson uses irony throughout this short story. The
name of the story itself is ironic. The name "A Blessing" gives the
reader a calm positive feeling, when what actually happens is the total
opposite. At the beginning of the story, a pregnant woman and her
husband are driving to get a dog. The irony here is that when they go
to get the dog, they do not get one because of the cruelty the man
shows in killing the collie. This story is a classic example of man's
cruelty to animals. A Review of The Last Days of the Dog-Men
by Frank Howell (SHS)
The Last Days of the Dog-Men
by Brad Watson is a collection of short stories about dogs and their
relationships with people. In each of his stories, the plot is
about struggles between people, but dogs are always playing a role in
the plot. 
"Agnes of Bob" is one of the short stories written in this book that
gives a good example of this. "Agnes of Bob" is a story about a
retired, widowed woman, Agnes, and her English bulldog, Bob. In
the story, Agnes is trying to deal with the death of her husband and
the fear of her own death as well. Agnes is always thinking of
her husband or how she will deal with her own death when she knows it
is about to come. Bob is the only family member she has
left. He often cheers her up and gets her mind off of her
problems. Bob is the only think that keeps Agnes from going
crazy.
Another good short story by Brad Watson is "The Last
Days of the Dog-Men." This story tells about a man’s younger
years of his life. He talks about the years when he was young
leading up to his marriage. He owns a dog named Otis who is his
reminder of his "glory days." Otis and the man are truly best
friends. One day the man’s wife catches him having an affair with
another woman and secretly puts the dog to sleep.
The settings of each of these stories are different,
but they are all somewhere in the United States. For example,
"The Last Days of the Dog-Men" takes place in a pasture in the
country, while "Agnes of Bob" takes place in a small town.
The settings are not bound to a specific region of the United
States. The short stories are told in both first and third
person. The theme of these stories would have to be that
although the dogs in the short stories are as innocent as children,
they are wise and honorable dogs.
In each of these short stories Watson uses the dogs in the plot
for some importance. In "Agnes of Bob," the dog
plays the role of the comforter. In "The Last Days of
the Dog-Men", the dog plays a reminder of the past; and then
is used by the wife for revenge against the husband. These
stories were very interesting and enjoyable. Watson’s
stories are very realistic as far as portraying life today.
Some parts of the book can get a little vulgar at times, but
I had no problem with it. I had fun reading this book
and think Brad Watson is a genius. I definitely recommend
that you read this book.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Websites
Read
a 2002 interview with Brad Watson by Robert Birnbaum.
 April
2, 2009, short story by Watson in the New Yorker
called Visitation.
Ole
Miss Writers Page gives info about Brad Watson.
Perpetual
Folly blog reviews Visitation.
RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
