Exley - Softcover

"Remarkable . . . Clarke's narrative assurance and unfailingly realistic characters allow him to pull off the literary equivalent of a half-court shot . . . [His] performance here is extraordinary; it's far and away the best work of his career." --Michael Schaub, NPR.org

"With humor as black as Exley's liver, Clarke picks apart the fictions we tell one another--and those we tell ourselves." --Entertainment Weekly

"Clarke pulls off a nice trick here, playing postmodern games while delivering a cleverly plotted story complete with a surprise twist." --The Washington Post Book World

"It's the flashes of insight into what it's like to fiercely love a-far-from-perfect father and his sad-sack hero despite their flaws that will move you." --San Francisco Chronicle
--San Francisco Chronicle

"Clarke expertly evokes other authors who deal with children's quests in the face of tragedy and mental illness, from J.D. Salinger to Jonathan Safran Foer. In the end, however, the novel comes off as its own original foray into the land of floating realities, and explains why, though so many of us claim to want the truth, in the end we are almost always content to believe in a well-reasoned lie." --Time Out New York, 5-star review
--Time Out New York

"In Exley, Brock Clarke's follow-up to the excellent An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, hidden identities and secret affairs bubble up when a young boy investigates why his father left the family. We laughed. We cried. We wanted to strangle the meddling therapist." --Daily Candy
--Daily Candy

"Oddly brilliant . . . The luminously engaging plot reveals the deceptions we cling to in order to survive . . . Clarke's breathtaking creativity gives unexpected power to his quirky, touching story." --Daily Beast
--Daily Beast

"Another literary high-wire performance by a novelist who is establishing himself as a unique voice in contemporary fiction . . . A seriously playful novel about the interweave of literature and life." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review
--Kirkus Reviews

"Remarkable . . . In the hands of a less talented writer, the novel's layers, twists and identity puzzles could strain the belief of even the most credulous reader; but Clarke's narrative assurance and unfailingly realistic characters allow him to pull off the literary equivalent of a half-court shot. This would have been a hard novel to write even adequately, but Clarke's performance here is extraordinary; it's far and away the best work of his career." --Michael Schaub, NPR.org
--NPR.org

"Frederick Exley's classic 1968 account of his epic alcoholism, A Fan's Notes, bears the oxymoronic subtitle "A Fictional Memoir." It is the space between those words, between real and fabricated memory, that Clarke examines . . . With humor as black as Exley's liver, Clarke picks apart the fictions we tell one another--and those we tell ourselves." --Entertainment Weekly
--Entertainment Weekly

Brock Clarke is an award-winning author of seven previous works of fiction, including the bestselling An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. He lives in Maine, and teaches at Bowdoin College.