Clouds Are the Mountains of the World is a suspenseful novel-in-stories set in a surreal, dystopian near-future. In beautifully written, spell-binding prose, it dramatizes the heroic quest of three women—mother, daughter, granddaughter—to reunite in a post-apocalyptic future filled with gun-toting bands of militias, corrupt police, crazy radio talk-show hosts, racism, and economic and political chaos. This is the story of their determination to survive with resilience, love, and stoic humor. Mixing terrifying suspense, riveting slice-of-life episodes, terrifying encounters, heart-warming scenes and splashes of dark humor, Davis narrates a gripping, powerful literary thriller about our human need to connect and endure.
“In prose as stark and striking as a prairie landscape, Alan Davis evokes an all-too-believable post-apocalyptic America that’s become ‘just a place to get up each morning and do something to stay alive.’ But even in this lawless and haunted AfterTimes, Davis’s main characters harbor connections that make them feel there is ‘nobody else in the world.’ 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, author of five books of fiction; co-writer of the film I'll Show You Mine
Clouds Are The Mountains of the World
Alan Davis's first two collections of stories, Rumors from the Lost World and Alone with the Owl, won the Many Voices Project award. His third book, So Bravely Vegetative, won the Prize Americana for Fiction. He's co-edited 10 editions of American Fiction and Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan, worked as Editor of a national literary press for 15 years. He's Professor Emeritus at Minnesota State University and has taught in MFA programs in Maine and Connecticut. He grew up in Louisiana and now lives in Minnesota.