-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A multi-genre debut novel tracing one woman's quest for faith across the American West during the Space Age.
In 1967, on the night of the first Apollo mission, a child named Izzy is orphaned when the doomsday cult she was born into clashes with the sheriff in the high desert of New Mexico. She's taken in by a struggling rancher who is trying to keep his mind from falling apart as NASA rocket tests encroach on his outer range. Inspired by the true story of a UFO cult in a village near White Sands, this novel traces Izzy Gently's whole life: from tragedy on the ranch, through addiction and a rich cast of eccentrics in Texas, to New Orleans, where Izzy is haunted by her past even as she uses lessons from childhood to counsel people who have lost the ability to see the moon.
In The High Heaven, Joshua Wheeler explores American piety as it mutates over the course of the Space Age, as technology changes notions of both humanity and the heavens. Shot through with the speculative while paying homage to three iconic genres―neo-Western, picaresque, and Southern gothic―Izzy's life story becomes a mirror for the warping of manifest destiny and, ultimately, a testament to the human will to seek meaning from the universe.
Suffused with the absurdist history of American space travel and the wide-open landscapes of the Southwest, The High Heaven chronicles a larger-than-life adventure of one extraordinary woman who, despite tragedy, never loses sight of redemption.
"In [Wheeler's] first novel, composed in weird and luminous prose and based on a true story, he interrogates powerful ambivalence about religion and explores the possibilities of transcendence." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Wheeler's languid pacing throttles the picaresque story, which never quite coheres. UFO enthusiasts might appreciate this tour through Space Age lore, but it doesn't have enough thrust for liftoff." —Publishers Weekly
"Fans of Tom Robbins, Barry Hannah, and Harry Crews should check out this dynamic, fresh life-on-the-road novel." —Kirkus Reviews
"With shimmering intelligence and innovative grace, this assured, prismatic debut fuses earthbound struggle and cosmic wonder. Giving a nod to America's richest literary traditions, Joshua Wheeler has unleashed a wildly entertaining, daringly original, genre blending vision. The High Heaven deftly traces the evolution of faith and technology, illuminating how our boundless aspirations reshape our sense of what it means to be human." ―Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe
"The High Heaven is Dickens dropping acid in the desert of 1960s New Mexico, having visions of outer space and America that may be of the past, present, or future, but that, under the spell of Joshua Wheeler's poetic sentences, fuse into an act of supreme imagination." ―Fernando A. Flores, author of Brother Brontë
This information about The High Heaven was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Joshua Wheeler is from Alamogordo, New Mexico. His essays have appeared in many literary journals, including The Iowa Review, Sonora Review, PANK, and The Missouri Review. He's written feature stories for BuzzFeed and Harper's Magazine online and is a coeditor of the anthology We Might as Well Call It the Lyric Essay. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California, New Mexico State University, and has an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. He teaches creative writing at Louisiana State University.
If you liked The High Heaven, try these:
by Megan Giddings
Published 2026
From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.
by Megan Giddings
Published 2026
From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, a dazzling novel about two brilliant sisters and what happens to their undeniable bond when a mysterious and possibly perilous new world beckons.
by Heather O'Neill
Published 2025
From the hugely acclaimed author beloved by literary lights, including Emily St. John Mandel, Kelly Link, and Mona Awad, a dark dystopian fairytale about an idyllic country ravaged by war—and a girl torn between safety and loyalty.
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
