World Gone Water (18 page)

–TONY D'SOUZA, author of
The Konkans

“This unsettling novel ponders human morality and sexuality, and the murky interplay between the two. Charlie Martens is a compelling antihero with a voice that can turn on a dime, from shrugging naiveté to chilling frankness.
World Gone Water
is a candid, often startling portrait of an unconventional life.”

– J. ROBERT LENNON, author of
Familiar

“Funny and surprising,
World Gone Water
is terrific fun to read and, as a spectacle of bad behavior, pretty terrifying to contemplate.”

–ADRIENNE MILLER, author of
The Coast of Akron

“Charlie Martens is my favorite kind of narrator, an obsessive yearner whose commitment to his worldview is so overwhelming that the distance between his words and the reader's usual thinking gets clouded fast.
World Gone Water
will draw you in, make you complicit, and finally leave you both discomfited and thrilled.”

–MATT BELL, author of
In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods

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.”

– TOM PERROTTA, author of
Election, Little Children
, and
The Leftovers

“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.”

– GARY SHTEYNGART, author of
Super Sad True Love Story

“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.”

– MATTHEW SPECKTOR, author of
American Dream Machine

“
Vernon Downs
is a brilliant meditation on obsession, art, and celebrity. Charlie Martens'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.”

– LAURA VAN DEN BERG, author of
The Isle of Youth

“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.”

– CHARLES YU, author of
Sorry Please Thank You

“
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.”

– DANA SPIOTTA, author of
Stone Arabia

Selected by
The Millions
as a Most Anticipated Read

“Though
Vernon Downs
appears to be about deception and celebrity, it's really about the alienation out of which these things grow. Clarke shows that obsession is, at root, about yearning: about the things we don't have but desperately want; about our longing to be anyone but ourselves.”

–
The Boston Globe

“A stunning and unsettling foray into a glamorous world of celebrity writers, artistic loneliness, and individual desperation.”

–
The Harvard Crimson

“
Vernon Downs
is a fast-moving and yet, at times, quite sad book about, in the broadest sense, longing.”

–
The Brooklyn Rail

This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Bloomsbury Reader

Copyright © 2015 Jaime Clarke

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The moral right of the author is asserted.

eISBN: 9781448215478

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