Jaime Clarke

A NEW YORK TIMES NEW & NOTEWORTHY SELECTION All novels are necessarily concerned with their protagonists, but what of the minor characters that fill out a novel's landscape? We can never know them as well as we should or like. The same is true for the trilogy of novels by Jaime Clarke: Vernon Downs, World Gone Water, and Garden Lakes. MINOR CHARACTERS brings together Clarke's previously published short stories featuring the supporting characters in his trilogy, as well as stories by some of today's most talented contemporary writers, who have chosen characters from the trilogy and contributed a story. With a Foreword by Jonathan Lethem, and an Introduction by Laura van den berg, this Warholian enterprise has produced a unique and stirring collection that both stands on its own and enriches the standalone novels in Clarke's trilogy. Featuring original stories by Mona Awad, Christopher Boucher, Kenneth Calhoun, Nina de Gramont, Ben Greenman, Annie Hartnett, Owen King, Neil LaBute, J. Robert Lennon, Lauren Mechling, Shelly Oria, Stacey Richter, Joseph Salvatore, Andrea Seigel, and Daniel Torday. "Clarke has done more, even, than Vonnegut in setting his characters free: he's flipped foreground and background, and at the same time invited others in to browse, and revise, and interfere with, and extend, his fictional who's who."--Jonathan Lethem, from his foreword

Minor Characters: Stories

Charlie Martens

Typical of the Times/What Was the Question Again?

We're So Famous

Mary Cotton

An anthology of the best works from the award-winning literary journal, Post Road, from a decade of great issues.

Writers Select Their Favorite Work from Post Road Magazine

No Near Exit

Dennis Lehane

Edited by three acclaimed genre authors, a second volume of classic short fiction reprints includes pieces by such leading writers as Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker and David Foster Wallace.

The Classics

Boston Noir 2

No one captured the teen portion of the eighties as poignantly as writer-director John Hughes. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Some Kind of Wonderful are timeless tales of love, angst, longing, and self-discovery that illuminated and assuaged the anxieties of an entire generation. Fondly nostalgic, filled with wit and surprising insights, don't you forget about me contains original essays from a skillfully chosen crop of novelists and essayists on the films' far-reaching effects on their own lives -- an irresistible read for anyone who came of age in the eighties (or just wishes they did). Featuring new writing from: Steve Almond * Julianna Baggott * Lisa Borders * Ryan Boudinot * T Cooper * Quinn Dalton * Emily Franklin * Lisa Gabriele * Tod Goldberg * Nina de Gramont * Tara Ison * Allison Lynn * John McNally * Dan Pope * Lewis Robinson * Ben Schrank * Elizabeth Searle * Mary Sullivan * Rebecca Wolff * Moon Unit Zappa

Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes

Don't You Forget About Me

A tribute to Hughes's 1980s teen movies by some of today's most popular young writers includes Lisa Gabriele's depiction of class struggles as reflected in Pretty in Pink, Quinn Dalton's reflections on multiple viewings of Sixteen Candles, and Steve Almond's exploration of the symbolism in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Original.

In direct contrast to the venerable Paris Review interviews, Talk Show puts contemporary writers on the late night couch and poses questions about everything except writing. Tune in for questions and answers about first concerts, movie remakes, childhood heroes, family myths, worst jobs, first cars, road trips, generational traumas, life-changing technologies, first dates, embarrassing moments, preferred Saturday morning cartoons, irrational fears, favorite first albums and much more. Though oftentimes irreverent and humorous, these interviews offer remarkable insight into the authors' perspectives as well as our time. A published author and an owner of a successful bookstore located just outside Boston, Jaime Clarke was able to earn of the trust of these artists and thus elicit several interesting and frank revelations. Contributing Authors include: Elisa Albert, Mike Albo, Will Allison, Steve Almond, Allison Amend, Jami Attenberg, Julianna Baggott, Daphne Beal, Thomas Beller, Aimee Bender, Sven Birkerts, Jenna Blum, Charles Bock, Chris Bohjalian, Lisa Borders, Christopher Boucher, Ryan Boudinot, Sarah Braunstein, Adam Braver, Kevin Brockmeier, Kiara Brinkman, Blake Butler, Maud Casey, Susan Cheever, Emily Chenoweth, Brock Clarke, Jon Clinch, Leah Hager Cohen, T Cooper, Elizabeth Crane, Sloane Crosley, Michael Dahlie, Quinn Dalton, Lisa Selin Davis, Nina de Gramont, Anita Diamant, Rebecca Donner, Tony D' Souza, David Ebershoff, Brian Evenson, Joshua Ferris, Maria Flook, Emily Franklin, Joshua Furst, Lisa Gabriele, Elizabeth Gaffney, Sophie Gee, Julia Glass, Myla Goldberg, Tod Goldberg, Elizabeth Graver, Ben Greenman, Lev Grossman, Jennifer Haigh, Paul Harding, Sheridan Hay, Joshua Henkin, Nellie Hermann, David Hollander, Ann Hood, Samantha Hunt, Karl Iagnemma, Perrin Ireland, Bret Anthony Johnston, Molly Jong-Fast, Rachel Kadish, Daphne Kalotay, Pagan Kennedy, Dave King, Owen King, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Aryn Kyle, Adam Langer, David Leavitt, Don Lee, Dennis Lehane, J. Robert Lennon, Francie Lin, Sam Lipsyte, Ellen Litman, Margot Livesey, Yael Goldstein Love, Michael Lowenthal, Allison Lynn, Fiona Maazel, Amy MacKinnon, Alice Mattison, Elizabeth McCracken, Ron McLarty, Kelly McMasters, John McNally, Mameve Medwed, Askold Melnyczuk, Dinaw Mengestu, Kirsten Menger-Anderson, Adrienne Miller, Lydia Millet, Rick Moody, Antonya Nelson, Joshua Neuman, Thisbe Nissen, Alix Ohlin, Ann Packer, Ed Park, Matthew Pearl, Heidi Pitlor, Hannah Pittard, Neal Pollack, Dan Pope, Mark Jude Poirier, Melissa Pritchard, Margo Rabb, Nelly Reifler, Irina Reyn, Nathaniel Rich, Stacey Richter, Lewis Robinson, Roxana Robinson, Peter Rock, Elissa Schappell, Ben Schrank, Salvatore Scibona, Elizabeth Searle, Jim Shepard, Karen Shepard, Rachel Sherman, Gary Shteyngart, Robert Anthony Siegel, Christopher Sorrentino, Dana Spiotta, Wesley Stace, Alix Strauss, Darin Strauss, Felicia Sullivan, Hannah Tinti, Peter Trachtenberg, Jen Trynin, A.J. Verdelle, Vendela Vida, Daniel Wallace, Amanda Eyre Ward, Sean Wilsey, and Moon Unit Zappa.

Talk Show

Daisy, Paque and Stella want to be famous. Inspired by their idols, Bananarama, they form a pop group of their own. But Stella heads to LA to become an actress and lusting after bad-boy rocker Bryan Metro. Paque and Daisy, without Stella, are just about ready to call it quits when two friends are mysteriously murdered. They, the last people to see the victims alive, become the prime suspects and cashing in on this sudden notoriety, record their first hit. And the adventure is only just beginning. We're So Famous, Jaime Clarke's debut novel, was first published in 2001.

Charlie Martens is desperate for stability in an otherwise peripatetic life. An explosion that killed his parents when he was young robbed him of normalcy and he was shuttled from relative to relative, left alone to decipher the world he encountered in order to cobble together an answer as to how he would live. Ever the outcast, Charlie recognizes in Olivia, an international student from London, the sense of otherness he feels and their relationship seems to promise salvation. But when Olivia abandons him, his desperate mind fixates on her favorite writer, Vernon Downs, who becomes an emblem for reunion with Olivia. Charlie's quest takes him from Phoenix to New York City and when chance brings him into proximity to Vernon Downs, he quickly ingratiates himself into Downs's world. Proximity invites certain temptations, though, and it isn't long before Charlie moves dangerously from fandom to apprentice to outright possession.

Vernon Downs

World Gone Water enlarges the portrait of Charlie Martens, first introduced in Vernon Downs, a young man grappling with how to navigate the world. Set in Phoenix, seven years before the events of Vernon Downs, Charlie finds himself released from a voluntary stay at a behavioral clinic in the Sonoran desert, the result of an incident with a woman he met while tending bar in Florida where Charlie had fled to forget his high school sweetheart, whose sudden marriage to someone else devastates him. But Charlie's homecoming launches him into a chain of events with a cast of characters that assault his fragile state and further undermine his general impressions about life and how to live. World Gone Water roves the deep terrain of our want for emotional connection and is a devastating narrative about love, sex, and friendship.

World Gone Water

Conversations with Jonathan Lethem collects fourteen interviews, conducted over a decade and a half, with the Brooklyn-born author of such novels as Girl in Landscape, Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, Chronic City, and many others. Winner of the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, Lethem (b. 1964) covers a wide range of subjects, from what it means to incorporate genre into literature, to the impact of the death of his mother on his life and work, to his being a permanent “sophomore on leave” from Bennington College, as well as his flight from Brooklyn to California and its lasting effect on his fiction. Lethem also reveals the many literary and pop culture influences that have informed his writing life. Readers will find Lethem as charming and generous and intelligent as his work. His examination of what it means to live a creative life will reverberate and enlighten scholars and fans alike. His thoughts on science fiction, intellectual property, literary realism, genre, movies, and rock ’n’ roll are articulated with elán throughout the collection, as are his comments on his own development as a craftsman.

Jaime Clarke

About

Books

Join the club