Works
Clouds Are the Mountains of the World
Clouds are the Mountains of the World, his forthcoming novel-in-stories, "is a compelling vision rendered in language, both surreal and chillingly familiar, that summons the apocalyptic dreams of Bruegel and Bosch." - Lin Enger
"Throughout we see the heroic quest of a family to reunite, despite the social upheaval and the daunting odds against them. Written in sparse, poetic prose, Clouds demonstrates that both our curse and our salvation lie within." - Michael C. White
"Litta, one of the book's recurring characters, at one point remembers a friend who died and was buried: "It gave her comfort to imagine blossoms growing out of his skull." Davis's America of the future is like that skull, the remains of what was--and what will never be again. His characters are the blossoms growing out of it." - Kristen Tsetsi
"The fierce troubled love connecting a grandmother, mother and grandchild is the radiant thread drawing together separate stories of wildly disparate survivors into a single moving chronicle. Like gradually gathering storm clouds, this epic novel builds force with quiet power, then bursts into a final cleansing release, as two souls find each other, 'the last two people on earth.'" - Elizabeth Searle
So Bravely Vegetative
Winner of the Prize Americana for Fiction.
"I kept thinking that I wouldn't mind ending up as a character in one of his stories. Odds are, he'd do me justice." Dorothy Allison, New York Times Book Review
"Alan Davis writes with a poet's sense of language, lyricism, and imagination...The range in these stories is nothing short of amazing." Clint McCown
Alone With the Owl
Winner of the Minnesota Voices Project (now the Many Voices Project).
"Although these stories occur in many different parts of the country, they are aesthetically shaped by the landscape of Louisiana, the muddy delta, and the oily bayou - the bottomland to which all things flow." Debra Marquart, author of The Horizontal World
"In Alone with the Owl I have met a gallery of characters more thoroughly and deeply than I do in half a year of my ordinary existence." Josip Novakovich
Rumors from the Lost World
Winner of the Minnesota Voices Project (now the Many Voices Project).
"Alan Davis's voice transports and sings....I kept thinking that I wouldn't mind winding up as a character in one of his stories. Odds are, he'd do me justice." Dorothy Allison, NYT Book Review
"Rumors from the Lost World is a magical collection of stories, one of the best I've encountered in years. It's hard to convey my enthusiasm for this book -- all the ordinary adjectives of praise seem trite and inadequate. But as personal testimony, I can say that I was tremendously moved and enlightened by each story, and that the collection as a whole lingers in my memory like a hometown -- a place I once lived in and once loved." Tim O'Brien, author of Going After Cacciato
"[Davis] has an original talent, a feel for action, a sparse yet vivid style, a sharp satirical sense, a keen eye and ear for the follies of the age." Walker Percy, author of The Moviegoer