Jaime Clarke is a graduate of the University of Arizona and holds an MFA from Bennington College. He is the author of the novels:

--We’re So Famous, (the first and worst review + actor Malcolm McDowell's hilarious reaction to review + praise for + original American cover + British cover + galley cover for 15th anniversary reissue)

--Vernon Downs, (praise for + book trailer narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Chris Cooper + alternate trailer + original cover),

--World Gone Water, (praise for + book trailer narrated by Thora Birch + original cover)

--Garden Lakes, (praise for + book trailer narrated by the author + original cover)

and the memoirs:

-- Poor Man’s Gatsby (praise for) published as Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in IG Publishing’s Bookmarked series

--Typical of the Times: Growing Up in the Culture of Spectacle, which is the basis for his microcast, Typical (Anthony Michael Hall promo), available on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio,  and elsewhere.

His Charlie Martens trilogy–Vernon Downs, World Gone Water, and Garden Lakes–is published in an omnibus by Roundabout Press to celebrate the story collection Minor Characters, (ToC), featuring original stories about the minor characters in the trilogy 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. The collection features a foreword by Jonathan Lethem, and an introduction by Laura van den Berg.

Clarke is also the editor of The Last Novel Ever Published, as well as the anthologies Don’t You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes, and Talk Show: On the Couch with Contemporary Writers; and co-editor of the anthologies No Near Exit: Writers Select Their Favorite Work from Post Road Magazine (with Mary Cotton), (ToC) and Boston Noir 2: The Classics (with Dennis Lehane and Mary Cotton).His apprentice work is collected as The Last Lemonade Stand on the Block, and his unpublished novel is called Scavengers.

Under the pseudonym J.D. West, he is the author of the Golden Age detective novel, The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery. (Harold Ober with his wife and Scottie Fitzgerald)

He is a founding editor of the literary magazine Post Road, now published at Boston College, and co-owner, with his wife, of Newtonville Books, an independent bookstore in Boston. (Newtonville Books’s 20th anniversary video) (Anniversary video by Mona Awad and Kenneth Calhoun) (Newtonville Books video: “Where do you hold your events?”)

Bloomsbury – J. Robert Lennon blurb for World Gone Water:

2015

Bloomsbury – Matt Bell blurb for World Gone Water:

2015

Bloomsbury – Amy Grace Loyd blurb for World Gone Water:

2015

Feb 4 Real Change review by Joe Martin of Vernon Downs

2015
2015

Correspondence – Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby by JDC, published by IG Books

2016

Correspondence – Garden Lakes

2016

Manuscript – Charles Bock introduction to Bloomsbury reissue of We’re So Famous

2016

Correspondence – We’re So Famous Bloomsbury reissue + Typical of the Times as an afterword, with an introduction by Charles Bock

2016

Correspondence – re Harold Ober Mystery Teleplay by JDC

2016

Correspondence – Mary Gaitskill re including her Post Road rec in an upcoming book

2016

Manuscript – “The Salinger Principle, or, A Novelist You’ve Never Heard of Calls it Quits” by JDC, published by Literary Hub as “Why I Quit Being a Writer”

2016
2016

Correspondence – The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery by JDC writing as as J.D. West

2016

Manuscript – “The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary” – Teleplay by JDC

2016
2016

Mona Awad blurb for reissue of We’re So Famous: “We’re So Famous smartly anticipates a culture re-configured by the quest for fame. The starry-eyed girls at the center of this rock-and-roll fairy tale are the predecessors of today’s selfie-snappers. With biting wit and wry humor, Clarke brilliantly reminds us that we’ve always lived for likes.”

2016

Correspondence – Letter from Setti Warren, mayor of Newton, MA, re Garden Lakes

2016
2016
2016

Brad Watson blurb for Garden Lakes: “Jaime Clarke reminds us that if the banality of evil is indeed a viable truth, its seeds are most likely sewn among adolescent boys.”

2016
2016

Margot Livesey blurb for Garden Lakes: “In the flawlessly imagined Garden Lakes, Jaime Clarke pays homage to Lord of the Flies and creates his own vivid, inadvertently isolated community.  As summer tightens its grip, and adult authority recedes, his boys gradually reveal themselves to scary and exhilarating effect.  In the hands of this master of suspense and psychological detail, the result is a compulsively readable novel.”

2016

Manuscript – Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby by JDC (formerly Poor Man’s Gatsby)

2016

Julia Glass blurb for Garden Lakes: “It takes some nerve to revisit a bulletproof classic, but Jaime Clarke does so, with elegance and a cool contemporary eye, in this cunningly crafted homage to Lord of the Flies. He understands all too well the complex psychology of boyhood, how easily the insecurities and power plays slide into mayhem when adults look the other way.”

2016

Manuscript – The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery by JDC as J.D. West

2016

Publishers Marketplace mention of deal for Bloomsbury reissue of We’re So Famous

2016

Boston Book Festival Guide, Oct 14-15, 2016. (+)

2016

Paul Harding blurb for Garden Lakes: “As tense and tight and pitch-perfect as Clarke’s narrative of the harrowing events at Garden Lakes is, and as fine a meditation it is on Golding’s novel, what deepens this book to another level of insight and artfulness is the parallel portrait of Charlie Martens as an adult, years after his fateful role that summer, still tyrannized, paralyzed, tangled in lies, wishing for redemption, maybe fated never to get it. Complicated and feral, Garden Lakes is thrilling, literary, and smart as hell.”

2016

Scott Cheshire blurb for Garden Lakes: “Smart, seductive, and suggestively sinister, Garden Lakes is a disturbingly honest look at how our lies shape our lives and destroy our communities. Read it: Part three in one of the best literary trilogies we have.”

2016

Grub Street Muse and the Marketplace conference bulletin ad for Newtonville Books featuring Garden Lakes

2016

Booklist review of Garden Lakes

2016
2016
2016

Fully-executed contract dated Jan 16 with IG Publishing for Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby by JDC (formerly Poor Man’s Gatsby)

2016

New York Times Book Review featuring capsule review of Garden Lakes

2016
2016
2016
2016
2016
2016

Brooklyn Rail piece by Joseph Salvatore re the Bookmarked series, featuring mention of JDC

2016
2016
2016
2016
2016

Draft of introduction by Christopher Boucher for More Alive and Less Lonely: On Books and Writers by Jonathan Lethem and Christopher Boucher (formerly Overcompensating Autodidact) featuring mention of JDC

2016
2016

Bloomsbury – Mona Awad blurb for reissue of We’re So Famous:

2016

Bloomsbury – Julia Glass blurb for Garden Lakes:

2016

Bloomsbury – Brad Watson blurb for Garden Lakes:

2016

Bloomsbury – Margot Livesey blurb for Garden Lakes:

2016

Bloomsbury – Scott Cheshire blurb for Garden Lakes:

2016

Bloomsbury – Paul Harding blurb for Garden Lakes:

2016

Finished copy – Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby (formerly What I Wanted to Be + American Kaleidoscope + Poor Man’s Gatsby)

2017
2017

Strand Magazine featuring full page ad for The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery by JDC as J.D. West

2017

Karen E. Bender blurb for Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby: “Jaime Clarke’s ode to Gatsby is a completely winning, honest ode to everything: the yearning of an outsider, for success, the drama of the work world, the seduction and darkness of wealth, the search for love and the complex, bumpy life of a writer.  The Nick Carraway of Phoenix stakes his own literary territory here; a charming and engaging book.”

2017
2017

Tickets and Playbill to A Doll’s House Part 2 on Broadway, starring Chris Cooper, with Mary Cotton.

2017

Correspondence – Bloomsbury re story collection Minor Characters based on minor characters from JDC novels, to be written by other authors, and published by Bloomsbury in 2021

2017

Manuscript – Vernon Downs screenplay by JDC

2017

David James Poissant blurb for Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby: “Jaime Clarke has penned a smart, funny, beguiling account of his love affair with America’s favorite novel.  This book, like its narrator, lives “both inside Fitzgerald’s pages and out,” the best case of literary obsession I’ve had the pleasure of reading since Nicholson Baker’s U & I.  A must-read, and not just for Gatsby fans.”

2017
2017

Finished copy – More Alive and Less Lonely by Jonathan Lethem and Christopher Boucher, signed to JDC by JL and CB

2017
2017
2017
2017

Manuscript – Screenplay adaptation of The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery by JDC

2017
2017

Boston Herald piece “Novel takes the cake for former Newton resident” re Annie Hartnett reading at Newtonville Books from her novel, Rabbit Cake

2017
2017

Boston Book Festival Guide. Oct 27-28, 2017. (+)

2017

Stephen King rider re Sept 28 event with SK and Owen King for Sleeping Beauties at First Baptist Church, hosted by Newtonville Books; incl ticket issued to JDC; incl Newton Police Department invoice for police detail.

2017
2017
2017

Blurb for Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby by Karen E. Bender:

2017

Blurb for Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby by David James Poissant:

2017

Correspondence – Minor Characters, a collection based on minor characters from JDC novels, 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, with a foreword by Jonathan Lethem, and an introduction by Laura van den Berg, to be published by Bloomsbury in 2021.

2018

Manuscript – World Gone Water screenplay

2018
2018
2018
2018
2018
2018

Shelf Awareness email featuring Newtonville Books’s 20th anniversary

2018

Correspondence – Radio play adaptation of The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery by JDC

2018
2018

Newton Tab 2017 Reader’s Choice Awards featuring Newtonville Books

2018
2018
2018
2018

Boston Book Festival Guide. Oct 12-13, 2018. (+)

2018
2018
2018

Publishers Weekly article announcing Newtonville Books as a 2018 Pannell Award nominee

2018
2018

Manuscript – Radio play adaptation of The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery by JDC

2018
2018
2018

Correspondence – The Last Novel Ever Published

2013

Manuscript – The Melissa Process (Published in 2015 as World Gone Water.)

2013

Manuscript – Garden Lakes

2013

Correspondence – Vernon Downs/US edition (Roundabout Press)

2013

Correspondence – New American Canon project

2013

Correspondence – Vernon Downs/UK edition (Bloomsbury)

2013

Manuscript – The Last Novel Ever Published

2013

Correspondence — re proposed Hitchcock anthology titled Fixing Hitchcock, edited by JDC and Jonathan Lethem

2013

Contract dated Sept 30 with PFP Publishing re Talk Show: On the Couch with Contemporary Writers; incl copy of agreement with Danny Jock re the illustrations.

2013
2013
2013

Finished copy of Talk Show: On the Couch with Contemporary Writers

2013

Contract dated March 23 with Roundabout Press re Vernon Downs, incl Nov 28 email from Dan Pope granting Canada to Bloomsbury UK.

2013
2013

Manuscript – Vernon Downs (penultimate version)

2013
2013

Manuscript – Vernon Downs (draft)

2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013

Tickets to Boston Book Festival keynote featuring Salman Rushdie

2013
2013
2013

Boston Book Festival 2013 Program Guide (+)

2013

Porter Square Books Events Program featuring October 7 event Roundtable with Post Road Magazine, featuring Laura van den Berg and Dan Chelotti

2013
2013
2013
2013

Livreshebdo.fr article re JDC and Amazon

2013

Alex Beam column in the Boston Globe entitled “Amazon hate-fest isn’t for me” re JDC website www.pleasedontbuymybookonamazon.com

2013
2013

Le Figaro article re JDC and Amazon

2013
2013
2013
2013
2013
2013

Article re JDC and Amazon in Spanish language newspaper El Confidential

2013
2013

Article re JDC and Amazon in Spanish language newspaper Contra el promedio Mexicano

2013

Danish web article (bearbooks.se) re JDC and Amazon

2013
2013

Danish news article (SehaBooks) on JDC and Amazon

2013

Israel Herald article on JDC and Amazon

2013
2013
2013

Digital Reader piece entitled “How Not to Succeed as an Author: Tell Readers Please Don’t Buy My Book on Amazon”

2013
2013

Hebrew article re JDC and Amazon

2013

Notes From the Engine Room re JDC and Amazon

2013

Marketing Daily piece re JDC and Amazon

2013

Brookline Booksmith screenshot of Nov 2 event for Boston Noir 2

2013
2014

Correspondence – re proposed Hitchcock anthology titled Fixing Hitchcock, edited by JDC and Jonathan Lethem

2014
2014

Correspondence – New American Canon material edited for Believer column

2014

Tom Perrotta blurb for Vernon Downs: “Vernon Downs is a gripping, hypnotically written and unnerving look at the dark side of literary adulation. Jaime Clarke’s tautly suspenseful novel is a cautionary tale for writers and readers alike–after finishing it, you may start to think that J.D. Salinger had the right idea after all.”

2014

Gary Shteynbart blurb for Vernon Downs: “Moving and edgy in just the right way. Love (or lack of) and Family (or lack of) is at the heart of this wonderfully obsessive novel.”

2014

Correspondence – Bloomsbury UK re Vernon Downs

2014

Correspondence – Post Road Magazine

2014

Dana Spiotta blurb for Vernon Downs: “Vernon Downs is a fascinating and sly tribute to a certain fascinating and sly writer, but this novel also perfectly captures the lonely distortions of a true obsession.”

2014

Charles Yu blurb for Vernon Downs: “An engrossing novel about longing and impersonation, which is to say, a story about the distance between persons, distances within ourselves. Clarke’s prose is infused with music and intelligence and deep feeling.”

2014

Correspondence – Vernon Downs

2014

Matthew Specktor blurb for Vernon Downs: “All strong literature stems from obsession. Vernon Downs belongs to a tradition that includes Nicholson Baker’s U and I, Geoff Dyer’s Out of Sheer Rage, and—for that matter—Pale Fire. What makes Clarke’s excellent novel stand out isn’t just its rueful intelligence, or its playful semi-veiling of certain notorious literary figures, but its startling sadness. Vernon Downs is first rate.”

2014

Laura van den Berg blurb for Vernon Downs: “Vernon Downs is a brilliant meditation on obsession, art, and celebrity. Charlie Marten’s mounting fixation with the titular Vernon is not only driven by the burn of heartbreak and the lure of fame, but also a lost young man’s struggle to locate his place in the world. Vernon Downs is an intoxicating novel, and Clarke is a dazzling literary talent.”

2014

Bound mock-up of The Melissa Process (Published in 2015 as World Gone Water.)

2014
2014

Manuscript – World Gone Water, edited by Mary Cotton

2014

Correspondence – Bloomsbury UK re World Gone Water

2014

Correspondence – Bloomsbury UK re We’re So Famous ebook

2014
2014

Contract dated September 24 with Roundabout Press re World Gone Water

2014
2014

Book trailer for Vernon Downs, narrated by Academy award-winning actor Chris Cooper featuring Aimee Bender, Elisa Albert, Atul Gawande, Ramona Ausubel, Alison Bechdel, Ben Marcus, Charles Bock, Christopher Boucher, Mark Conway, T Cooper, Elizabeth Crane, Michael Dahlie, Tanya Donelly, Jennifer duBois, James Fuerst, Julia Glass, Lev Grossman, Holly LeCraw, James Scott, Leslie Jamison, Joanna Hershon, Jonathan Wilson, Owen King, Allison Lynn, Amy MacKinnon, Gregory Maguire, Rebecca Makkai, Margot Livesey, Jill McCorkle, Paul Harding, Marianne Leone, Paul Yoon, Ivy Pochoda, Henriette Power, Jamie Quatro, Nelly Reifler, Ben Schrank, Elizabeth Searle, Jim Shepard, Karen Shepard, Amy Sohn, Anna Solomon, Jessica Treadway, Dawn Tripp, Laura van den Berg, Wesley Stace, Joan Wickersham, Mary-Beth Hughes, Mary Sullivan, Myla Goldberg, Amy Hempel, Adam Wilson, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Jonathan Ames, Sam Lipsyte, David James Poissant, Tom Perrotta, and Charles Yu

2014
2014
2014

Manuscript – World Gone Water, edited by Dan Pope

2014

Correspondence – World Gone Water

2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014

Roundabout Press galley letter re World Gone Water

2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014

Receipt from Soho House (West Hollywood) dinner with Bret Easton Ellis

2014
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