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WORK TITLE: The Waters & the Wild
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1968
WEBSITE:
CITY: Oberlin
STATE: OH
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
Phone: 440-775-8549; married to the literary critic Laura Baudot; spends part of the year near Nevers, France.
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | n 2004044402 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/n2004044402 |
| HEADING: | Harrison, DeSales, 1968- |
| 000 | 00663cz a2200169n 450 |
| 001 | 6325131 |
| 005 | 20170531080025.0 |
| 008 | 040820n| azannaabn |n aaa |
| 010 | __ |a n 2004044402 |
| 040 | __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC |d DLC |
| 046 | __ |f 1968-12-18 |2 edtf |
| 053 | _0 |a PS3608.A78342 |
| 100 | 1_ |a Harrison, DeSales, |d 1968- |
| 670 | __ |a The end of the mind, 2004: |b ECIP t.p. (DeSales Harrison) data view (b. 12/18/68) |
| 670 | __ |a The waters and the wild, 2018: |b CIP t.p. (DeSales Harrison) |
| 670 | __ |a e-mail 2017-05-31 fr. P.Gilbert, penguinrandomhouse: |b (DeSales Harrison, author of The waters and the wild, is also the author of The end of the mind) |
| 953 | __ |a lf03 |
PERSONAL
Born December 18, 1968; married Isabel Gillies (divorced); married Laura Baudot (a literary critic); children: four.
EDUCATION:Yale University, B.A., 1990; Johns Hopkins University, M.A., 1991; Harvard University, Ph.D., 2002.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Oberlin College, OH, associate professor, director of creative writing program. Associate editor of FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
DeSales Harrison is a writer and educator based in Oberlin, Ohio. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is an associate professor at Oberlin College and has also directed the university’s creative writing program. In 2005, he released his first book, a work of literary and philosophical criticism called The End of the Mind: The Edge of the Intelligible in Hardy, Stevens, Larkin, Plath, and Glück.
The Waters and the Wild was released in 2018. The novel’s protagonist is Daniel Abend, a psychoanalyst living in New York City. Daniel has been treating Jessica Burke, and he believes his sessions with her have been going well. Daniel is surprised when he learns of Jessica’s death. It appears that she has overdosed on drugs. Daniel recovers from the shock and goes on with his life and work. However, a few years later, he is contacted by an anonymous person, asserting that Jessica did not, in fact, overdose. Rather, she was murdered. Daniel gets rid of the package the anonymous person sent him and hopes to put the matter behind him. Soon after, his teenage daughter, Clementine, is abducted, likely by the same person who sent the package. Daniel begins receiving many disturbing messages, regarding Clementine, Clementine’s mother, who is deceased, and his own secrets.
Jane Murphy, reviewer in Booklist, suggested that The Waters and the Wild was “as elegiac and plaintive as if came from the quill of Edgar Allan Poe himself.” However, a Publishers Weekly critic remarked: “Harrison’s fondness for florid prose and philosophical asides slows the pace while obscuring the plot.” In a more favorable assessment on the Book Trib website, Rachel Fogle de Souza described the volume as “an imaginative labyrinth, with unexpected twists.” De Souza added: “Harrison writes a stunning contradiction of characters and themes that work brilliantly and delve into a deep exploration of human character, psyche, guilt and responsibility.” A contributor to the Book Lover Book Reviews website commented: “The Waters and The Wild is a book I would recommend only to those with strong literary leanings, and a particular interest in (or at least, patience for) psychological theory, theology and introspection. That is not to say this novel’s billing as a literary thriller is incorrect. … It is simply that readers must traverse hundreds of pages of highly literary terrain before the thriller element really takes hold. It really needn’t have been that challenging.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 2018, Jane Murphy, review of The Waters and the Wild, p. 29.
Publishers Weekly, January 29, 2018, review of The Waters and the Wild, p. 170.
ONLINE
Book Lover Book Reviews, http://bookloverbookreviews.com/ (April 21, 2018), review of The Waters and The Wild.
Book Trib, https://booktrib.com/ (March 13, 2018), Rachel Fogle de Souza, review of The Waters and The Wild.
Oberlin College website, https://www.oberlin.edu/ (June 20, 2018), author faculty profile.
Publishers Weekly Online, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (April 13, 2015), Rachel Deahl, article about author.
London Book Fair 2015: Oberlin Prof’s Debut Draws Seven Figures
By Rachel Deahl |
Apr 13, 2015
DeSales Harrison has struck literary gold, so to speak, just before the London Book Fair. With the show set to kick off tomorrow, the Oberlin College professor’s debut novel, The Waters & the Wild, has sold to Kate Medina at Penguin Random House for seven figures. Medina took North American rights in a two-book deal brokered by Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency.
photo: Bentley Drezner
Harrison
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The novel, which does not yet have a scheduled publication date, begins with a death. When Jessica Burke, a former heroin addict with a history of depression, turns up dead in her bathtub, it’s presumed she overdosed. But after her psychoanalyst, Daniel Abend, receives a series of mysterious hand-written poems, he starts to think otherwise. Then, when Abend’s daughter suddenly disappears, he finds himself at the center of an elaborate scheme. The second book in the deal, Clegg confirmed, will be “kindred in plotting and tone” to this one.
In a description of the book sent to potential buyers, Clegg called the novel “a brilliantly choreographed and spellbinding tale of desperate fathers, stolen daughters, and the distance we travel for revenge and absolution.”
Harrison, who also has an MA from Johns Hopkins and a PhD from Harvard, lives with his wife and daughter in Ohio. At Oberlin, he teaches Lyric Poetry.
DeSales Harrison
Photo of DeSales Harrison
Associate Professor of English
Director, Creative Writing Program
English
Creative Writing
Contact
Rice Hall 107
DeSales.Harrison@oberlin.edu
440-775-8549
By appointment
ObieMAPS
Education
BA, Yale University, 1990
MA, Johns Hopkins University, 1991
PhD, Harvard University, 2002
Biography
My teaching centers around Lyric Poetry, with an emphasis on modern and contemporary work. Among the courses I regularly teach are an introductory course called "100 Poems," a midlevel course on poetry of the last century or so, and upper-level courses focusing on smaller groupings of writers. I also offer, from time to time, a senior seminar on poetry and poetics, and have recently developed a first-year seminar called "Beyond Disbelief" which looks into what we mean when we say that artworks are true, real, authoritative, or convincing.
I have published a book entitled The End of the Mind: The Edge of the Intelligible in Hardy, Stevens, Larkin, Plath, and Glück and a number of articles on modern and contemporary poetry. Presently, I am finishing a book called This is Mortality: First Things and Last in Lyric Poetry which is about (in addition to poetry and mortality) how poems frame concepts and elaborate ideas, in short, how poems think. I am also at work on a book entitled Psyche's Lover: Eros and the Modern Lyric about some modes of love (sexual, fraternal, filial, intellectual, and divine) and the different kinds of poetic speech they have occasioned.
I am an associate editor of FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, and I serve on the Library Committee and the Mack Lecture Committee.
News
Best-Selling Author and Humorist David Sedaris Will Give 2018 Commencement Address
April 5, 2018
Sedaris is a critically acclaimed writer and contributor on the public radio show This American Life .
QUOTED: "as elegiac and plaintive as if came from the quill of Edgar Allan Poe himself."
The Waters & the Wild
Jane Murphy
Booklist.
114.13 (Mar. 1, 2018): p29. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Waters & the Wild. By DeSales Harrison. Apr. 2018. 297p. Random, $27 (9780812989540).
As elegiac and plaintive as if came from the quill of Edgar Allan Poe himself, Harrison's novel is carefully constructed around Poe's favorite theme, the death of a beautiful woman. Daniel Abend is a successful Upper West Side psychoanalyst and the perplexed single parent of a teenager daughter. His life begins to unravel when he receives disturbing clues in the mail implying that one of his patients, believed to have committed suicide, may have been murdered. Then, when his daughter disappears a few days later, he is forced to confront the tangled mess he made as a young man living in Paris--a mess that left debts to be paid and accounts to be settled, perhaps with his own life, or even his daughter's. There is a striking psychological intensity to Harrison's fiction debut, which unfolds in the form of a written confession to a priest in which repetitive lines from a Yeats poem, "The Stolen Child," help generate the story's ominous tone. Despite a twenty-first-century setting, this will satisfy fans of historical-fiction authors Louis Bayard and Matthew Pearl.--Jane Murphy
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Murphy, Jane. "The Waters & the Wild." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2018, p. 29. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A532250865/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=4a85ebb8. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A532250865
QUOTED: "Harrison's fondness for florid prose and philosophical asides slows the pace while obscuring the plot."
1 of 2 5/28/18, 9:33 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
The Waters & the Wild
Publishers Weekly.
265.5 (Jan. 29, 2018): p170. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Waters & the Wild
DeSales Harrison. Random House, $27 (320p) ISBN 978-0-8129-8954-0
When artist Jessica Burke dies of an apparent overdose in her New York City apartment, her psychoanalyst, Daniel Abend, the protagonist of Oberlin professor Harrison's poignant but ponderous debut, is shocked; he thought she'd turned her life around. Daniel manages to push the matter from his mind--until three years later, when he receives an anonymous package containing proof that Jessica was murdered. He destroys the evidence to avoid becoming involved, but then his 18-year-old daughter, Clementine, goes missing. His mailbox fills with menacing messages suggesting that the sender not only knows Clementine's whereabouts but also possesses information about Daniel's past indiscretions and the death of Clementine's mother. Daniel knows that he must atone for his sins, but how far will he go in order to save his child? After a strong start, the story loses steam. Although the central mystery intrigues, its convoluted denouement frustrates, and Harrison's fondness for florid prose and philosophical asides slows the pace while obscuring the plot. Agent: Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Waters & the Wild." Publishers Weekly, 29 Jan. 2018, p. 170. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526116520/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=ab030fff. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A526116520
2 of 2 5/28/18, 9:33 PM
QUOTED: "an imaginative labyrinth, with unexpected twists."
"Harrison writes a stunning contradiction of characters and themes that work brilliantly and delve into a deep exploration of human character, psyche, guilt and responsibility."
Review: ‘The Waters & The Wild’ is a Stunning Exploration of Human Character
By
Rachel Fogle De Souza -
March 13, 2018
Daniel Abend lives a comfortable life as a successful psychotherapist on the Upper West Side of New York City. He is a single father raising a teenage daughter. When one of his patients commits suicide Daniel receives a note that has him start to ask questions about his patient’s death. Provided with a mysterious set of clues in the form of an old key, a haunting photograph and a veiled poem, Daniel is left struggling to solve the mystery before him. But suddenly, his daughter disappears.
In a desperate search for his daughter and the truth, Daniel finds himself swept back to when he was a young man living in Paris. As each day passes, the trail gets colder and colder. Tortured by anonymous letters he receives, Daniel has to confront the past he left behind. But ultimately, Daniel knows the truth: in the end, we must all pay our debts.
The Waters & The Wild (Random House) is an imaginative labyrinth, with unexpected twists following a very dark maze. With each sentence, the author evokes the feeling of growing desperation, setting the reader up for an ending no one will see coming. If you like psychological thrillers this story explores every region of human thought and performance. Harrison writes a stunning contradiction of characters and themes that work brilliantly and delve into a deep exploration of human character, psyche, guilt and responsibility.
The Waters & The Wild: A Novel will be released on April 3rd. For more information on the author, please visit oberlin.edu/desales-harrison
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Image courtesy of oberlin.edu
DeSales Harrison is an associate professor of modern poetry and acting director of the Creative Writing Program at Oberlin College. He earned his BA from Yale University, his MA from Johns Hopkins University, and his PhD from Harvard University. He studied psychoanalysis at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York. He is married to the literary critic Laura Baudot, has four children, and spends part of the year near Nevers, France.
QUOTED: "The Waters & The Wild is a book I would recommend only to those with strong literary leanings, and a particular interest in (or at least, patience for) psychological theory, theology and introspection.
That is not to say this novel’s billing as a literary thriller is incorrect… It is simply that readers must traverse hundreds of pages of highly literary terrain before the thriller element really takes hold. It really needn’t have been that challenging."
THE WATERS & THE WILD by DeSales Harrison, Book Review
April 21, 2018 by Joanne P 2 Comments
In DeSales Harrison’s The Waters & The Wild… haunted by a past crime and a past lover, a psychoanalyst tries to protect his daughter from his mistakes—but at what cost?
DeSales Harrison The Waters and The Wild
The Waters & The Wild Synopsis:
“This dazzling gothic-tinged thriller takes us deep into a labyrinth of secrets, lies, and deceptions.”—Dan Chaon, New York Times bestselling author of Ill Will
Daniel Abend is a single parent in New York City, with a successful therapy practice and a comfortable life: an apartment on the Upper West Side, a teenage daughter, a peaceful daily routine. When one of his patients commits suicide, it is a tragedy, but one easily explained: The young woman suffered from depression and drug addiction.
But soon after, Daniel receives an ominous note that makes him question the circumstances surrounding his patient’s death. He is provided with a provocative series of clues—a mysterious key, a cryptic poem, a photograph with a chilling message. A few days later, his daughter abruptly disappears.
Daniel is swept into an increasingly desperate search for his daughter, and for the truth—a search that stretches back decades, to when he was a young man living in Paris, falling in love with a woman who would ultimately upend his life. As he is tormented by a steady flow of anonymous letters, Daniel recognizes that he must confront the secrets of his past: There is a debt to be paid, an account to be settled.
(Penguin Random House, 2018)
BOOK REVIEW
The Waters & The Wild is a book I would recommend only to those with strong literary leanings, and a particular interest in (or at least, patience for) psychological theory, theology and introspection.
That is not to say this novel’s billing as a literary thriller is incorrect… It is simply that readers must traverse hundreds of pages of highly literary terrain before the thriller element really takes hold. It really needn’t have been that challenging.
Yet the right reader, one that gives conscientious focus to the myriad tangents and imagery laid before them, will often find that ‘highly literary terrain’ profound; and dare I say it, in places majestic.
It seems to me now that when I removed it from the post box and read my address, spelled out patiently in careful block capitals, there followed a moment of stillness, a floating like the floating of a vase or glass that, having escaped the hand’s grasp, turns lazily, luxuriates in air, as though no haste could trouble it before it shatters on the floor.
While I have little appetite for theology, I found the philosophical debates and the unreliability of narrators interesting. Harrison’s use of the subtle nuance of poetic verse and photographic composition to menace was fascinating.
I admired this novel’s complex web of intrigue, but what held greatest appeal for me was the poetry of Harrison’s prose. As the evocative cover art suggests, The Waters & The Wild explores the darkest depths of love, obsession and personal conceit, and the poetic beauty to be found within that darkness — heavy and affecting subject matter.
I think that in the soul of each psychoanalyst such a place must exist, in spite of what we profess about our neutrality, our professional detachment. Perhaps something of what we receive can be melted down and sold back as candlelight—our costly illuminations—but other elements remain just as they appeared, the dreams nailed to the walls, the abandoned hearts and limbs, the soot of inextinguishable longing.
Penguin Random House reportedly purchased North American rights to The Waters & The Wild for seven-figures (2 book deal) just before the 2015 London Book Fair*. I suspect this dark, dense debut from Harrison may not hold the broad commercial appeal anticipated, but based on its literary merits, my radar will certainly be alert to future titles from Harrison.
BOOK RATING: The Story 4 / 5 ; The Writing 4 / 5
Get your copy of The Waters & The Wild from:
Book Depository | Amazon | Kobobooks | B&N | Indigo | iBooks | Booktopia(Aus)
Genre: Literature, Drama, Thriller, Mystery
The is review counts towards my participation in the 2018 New Release Challenge.
About the Author, DeSales Harrison
DeSales Harrison is an associate professor of modern poetry and acting director of the Creative Writing Program at Oberlin College. He earned his BA from Yale University, his MA from Johns Hopkins University, and his PhD from Harvard University. He studied psychoanalysis at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York. He is married to the literary critic Laura Baudot, has four children, and spends part of the year near Nevers, France.
* One wonders to what extent, if any, DeSales Harrison’s fleeting notoriety after the publication of his actress ex-wife’s divorce memoir fiction played a part in that 7-figure sum, as compared to his notable academic credentials in poetry and creative writing.
Other reviews of The Waters & The Wild
Goodreads, BookStalkerBlog, Publishers Weekly, Quiet Fury Books
* My receiving a copy of The Waters & The Wild from the publisher for review purposes did not impact the expression of my honest opinions in the review above.