See the hottest books publishing this Summer

John Dalton Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

John Dalton
Rebecca E. B. Daugherty

John Dalton

John Dalton Biography

John Dalton is the author of the novel, Heaven Lake, which won the Barnes and Noble 2004 Discover Award in fiction. It was also awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for best first fiction of 2004 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His second novel The Inverted Forest was published in 2010.

Dalton grew up near St. Louis, Missouri, as the youngest of seven children. He lived in Taiwan (the setting for his first novel) during the late 1980s and travelled extensively in mainland China and Asia. He attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the 1990s but has now returned to St. Louis where he lives with his wife and two daughters. He is director of the MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Missouri - St. Louis.

John Dalton's website

This bio was last updated on 11/11/2014. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

John Dalton explains how his first novel is based on an actual proposition he received in Taiwan - to travel to mainland China, marry a woman under false pretenses and bring her to Taiwan.

Q: Is it true that part of your novel is based on an actual proposition you received in Taiwan?

A: It is, yes. This happened only a few months after I'd arrived in Taiwan in 1989. I'd moved to Toulio on a whim to teach English in a language school. At night, after classes, I'd go and have dinner with several other foreign teachers along a lane of food stalls. We were great rarities in town, often stared at, frequently approached. Several nights in a row a local gentleman, an overly-cheery businessman with a fitful manner, came to our table. He was an enthusiastic beer drinker. One evening, after many rounds of beer, he told his story. He'd recently been to the mainland to seek out business opportunities and, purely by chance, had met and fallen in love with a woman whom he described as the most beautiful woman in China. He wanted to marry her. She and her family welcomed the prospect. Politically, however, such a union would either be impossible or result in long bureaucratic delays. And so he made a standing offer of ten thousand U.S. dollars to our table of foreign teachers for anyone willing to travel to the mainland, marry the woman under false pretenses and bring her to Taiwan. Was he serious? ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by John Dalton at BookBrowse
Heaven Lake jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for John Dalton but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Mischa Berlinski

    Mischa Berlinski

    Mischa Berlinski is the author of Fieldwork, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Peacekeeping. He has written for the New York Review of Books, Men's Journal, and Harper's Magazine, and his writing has appeared in ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Heaven Lake

    Try:
    Fieldwork
    by Mischa Berlinski

  • Tom Bissell

    Tom Bissell

    Tom Bissell is the author of Chasing the Sea, God Lives in St. Petersburg, The Father of All Things, Why Video Games Matter, Magic Hours: Essays On Creators and Creation (2012) and Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Heaven Lake

    Try:
    God Lives In St. Petersburg
    by Tom Bissell

We recommend 7 similar authors

View all 7 Read-Alikes

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Busybody Book Club
    by Freya Sampson
    They can't even agree on what to read, so how are they going to solve a murder?
  • Book Jacket
    The Ghostwriter
    by Julie Clark
    From the instant New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell comes a dazzling new thriller.
  • Book Jacket
    The Lamplighter's Bookshop
    by Sophie Austin
    The Lost Bookshop meets The Lost Apothecary in a beguiling novel full of secrets…

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Making Friends Can Be Murder
    by Kathleen West

    Thirty-year-old Sarah Jones is drawn into a neighborhood murder mystery after befriending a deceptive con artist.

  • Book Jacket

    Ordinary Love
    by Marie Rutkoski

    A riveting story of class, ambition, and bisexuality—one woman risks everything for a second chance at first love.

Who Said...

To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B a L

and be entered to win..

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.