Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: December Boys
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.joeclifford.com/
CITY: San Francisco Bay area
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://auniqueandportablemagic.blogspot.com/2014/07/interview-with-crime-author-joe-clifford.html * http://oceanviewpub.com/authors/joe-clifford/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: nr2002018348
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/nr2002018348
HEADING: Clifford, Joe
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PERSONAL
Married; wife’s name Justine; children: Holden and Jackson Kerouac.
EDUCATION:Florida International University, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, editor, director, producer. Gutter Books, acquisitions editor; Lip Service West, Oakland, CA, producer.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
A former homeless junkie, Joe Clifford is a successful author, editor, and producer. He has published the “The Jay Porter” mystery series and several short story collections. Clifford is acquisitions editor for Gutter Books and the producer of Lip Service West, a gritty reading series in Oakland, California. He also edited the anthology, Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Fiction Based on the Songs of Bruce Springsteen, which presents crime stories inspired by Springsteen song titles. Clifford holds an M.F.A. from Florida International University, and he lives with this wife and two sons in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Junkie Love and Choice Cuts
Clifford uses the backdrop of drug abuse to explore themes of redemption and achievements of the misunderstood and marginalized. He works with other ex-junkies to help them find a voice through writing. Clifford noted on his Joe Clifford Home Page, “As ugly as it gets out there at times, something beautiful can still shine through the darkness of that life.” Clifford’s 2013 novel Junkie Love is an autobiographical account of his life as a heroine addict on Skid Row, written in Los Angeles’ noir tradition. He said in an article by Joseph Lapin, in LA Weekly: “Noir is one of the reasons why L.A. has such a rich tradition—or any big city. Loneliness and hopelessness is compounded by the fact that you’re surrounded by people, but you’re still miles away.”
Clifford’s 2012 book Choice Cuts is his debut short story collection that highlights the tragic lives of the marginalized, misanthropic, and short-changed who teeter on the edge of desperation and madness. Stories involve a morally bankrupt television producer, addicts, and gangsters who repeatedly make bad choices despite good intensions.
Lamentation and December Boys
In 2016, Clifford wrote the first in “The Jay Porter” series, Lamentation. Set in winter in Ashton, New Hampshire, Jay Porter works a dead-end job while he tries to maintain a relationship with his ex-girlfriend and their toddler son. His drug-addicted brother, Chris, is in trouble with the police after they suspect he killed his partner in the computer recycling business. Chris swears that he’s being framed because of some damaging information on a computer drive that could destroy the town’s wealthy and powerful. After Chris escapes jail, Jay reluctantly at first begins to search for him, then sees his chance for salvation by clearing his brother’s name.
Describing the inspiration for Lamentation, Clifford told Sue Coletta in an interview online the Book Stops Here Web site: “It’s sensitive subject matter, so we can leave it as the relationship between the brothers in Lamentation is drawn heavily from my own life, both before and after my addiction. I also used some topical current events as a backdrop.” Noting how Clifford writes from experience on the potential for moral collapse and redemption, a Publishers Weekly contributor noted that “his lean, gritty prose never lets characters or readers off the hook.” Nancy H. Fontaine in Library Journal said the book “paints a bleak but honest picture of northern New England. A taut thriller rendered in vivid prose.”
Another book in the series, December Boys, finds Porter working at NorthEastern Insurance in New Hampshire investigating an accident claim when he discovers that a county judge is involved in a scam against poor people charged with minor drug offenses. One teenager arrested for drug possession is inappropriately sentenced to a private behavioral modification detention facility. Jay learns the judge is involved in the lucrative private prison business. Jay’s abrasive character is filled with guilt and grief for his brother. The “deeply affecting essence of the book is really in Jay’s struggle with managing his depression, [and] rage,” according to a Publishers Weekly contributor. Writing in Booklist, Don Crinklaw commented that the book offers “some fine writing, plus an interesting mix of people and a truly offbeat, if arguably rude, hero.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist May 1, 2016, Don Crinklaw, review of December Boys, p. 24.
Library Journal September 15, 2014, Nancy H. Fontaine, review of Lamentation, p. 64.
Publishers Weekly, August 25, 2014, review of Lamentation, p. 80; April 18, 2016, review of December Boys, p. 99.
ONLINE
Anne Leigh Parish, http://anneleighparrish.com/ (July 7, 2016), review of Lamentation.
Book Stops Here, http://auniqueandportablemagic.blogspot.com/ (July 21, 2014), Sue Coletta, author interview.
Joe Clifford Home Page, http://www.joeclifford.com (March 1, 2017), author profile.
LA Weekly, http://www.laweekly.com/ (August 15, 2013), Joseph Lapin, author interview.
Oceanview Publishing Web site, http://oceanviewpub.com/ (March 1, 2017), author profile.
Silver of Stone Magazine, https://sliverofstonemagazine.com/ (September 26, 2014), review of Lamentation.*
As an artist, I explore the dark places, the uncomfortable places, the dingy bricks and concrete cracks of a cold uncaring city. I write about the criminals and dope fiends, the dealers and the dreamers, the cops with their heels on the throat, closing in on the kill. I know this scene well, because I once moved among them.
As a homeless junkie for several years, I stole with them, slept with them. I fought along side them. My work shows this world intimately, and ultimately it is not a loss I choose to lament; rather, it is a celebration I embrace. Because for as ugly as it gets out there at times, something beautiful can still shine through the darkness of that life. You just have to know where to look, and you only need to stay on your feet long enough to find it.
I made it out. Many did not. So I go back now and extract what I can, what was preserved, and I champion it. I do it for me. I do it for them. And I do it for you. Enjoy.
Joe Clifford is acquisitions editor for Gutter Books and the producer of Lip Service West, a gritty reading series in Oakland, California. A former homeless junkie, Clifford has dedicated his life to education and the craft of writing and helping other ex-junkies find a voice and a platform for their creative energies. He holds a MFA degree from Florida International University and is the author of several acclaimed books. Lamentation, his first novel in the Jay Porter series, as well as his anthology (editor) Trouble in the Heartland were Anthony Award nominees. Give Up the Dead follows December Boys and Lamentation in the Jay Porter series, all praised for Clifford’s success in using the backdrop of drug abuse to shine a light on the misunderstood and marginalized, while weaving personal tragedies into narratives that compel and transcend as well as entertain. Clifford lives with his wife, Justine, and two sons, Holden and Jackson Kerouac, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Interview with Crime Author Joe Clifford
We are shaking things up again on Prose & Cons. Two of our own, Sue Coletta and Joe Clifford, sat down for an in-depth interview.
As an artist, Joe explores the dark places, the uncomfortable places, the dingy bricks and concrete cracks of a cold uncaring city. He writes about the criminals and dope fiends, the dealers and the dreamers, the cops with their heels on the throat, closing in on the kill. He knows this scene well, because he once moved among them. His books, Junkie Love, Choice Cuts, and Wake The Undertaker can be found in local bookstores and online. His new thriller, Lamentation comes out October, this year.
After all the rave reviews of early released copies I just had to read the sneak peek, and I was instantly hooked! I consider Joe a friend, as well as one of my favorite authors. He’s a talented writer and a great storyteller.
Sue: Hi, Joe. Thank you for agreeing to take the time to do this interview.
Joe: Thanks for having me!
Sue: Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
Joe: The short answer is I’ve always been, for lack of a better term, an artist. I make things. Which I have been doing since I could hold a pencil. Writing, specifically? I’d always scribbled (crappy) poems and made up stories. The first time someone told me I was good at it, was my 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Virostek. That’s what got me … on the path. Which is funny. Because when I did my book tour for Junkie Love, Mrs. Virostek (who now insists I call her Carol because I’m no longer 15) came to the reading. Talk about full-circle. I am a musician. I paint. Of all those enterprises that earn you no money, writing seemed to have the greatest growth potential.
Sue: (*Barbara Walters question*) You have a very diverse background, a background that a lot of people couldn’t recover from, never mind grow to the status of published author and editor. So my question is, while sitting under that bridge—cold, high(?), homeless—what inspired you to write Junkie Love, your first novel? And, how did you break out from that life?
Joe: Under a bridge is a figure of speech. I mean, I am not sure how many nights I actually slept under a bridge. If at all. I used to cop under a bridge. I was a homeless drug addict for about five years. The first five of my addiction I still had apartments, albeit shitty ones. By the end, I didn’t have a home of my own. But even then I didn’t spent too many nights sleeping outside. For one, I did a lot of speed, so I wasn’t sleeping. For the times I crashed, there was an old music studio I used to break into, and there was a stairwell that led to the roof that no one ever used. I dragged a mattress up there. I had a truck for a while. Wasn’t exactly my truck. But I’d sleep in the bed. Or there were couches around town. Sometimes, if the day’s scamming went well enough I’d be able to afford a skid row hotel room, or one of my junkie buddies would put me up. A few nights in a shelter, here and there. That kind of thing. As for how I broke out of that life? I grew up. The #1 method to getting off drugs and/or alcohol is not AA (as they would like you to believe), nor is it Moderation Management or any other self-help group. You mature out of it. You don’t see many old junkies for a reason. That said, AA (and other groups) can be immensely helpful. I used AA for a while (and Rational Recovery, too). But the truth is, I got, as they say in AA, sick and tired of being sick and tired. It’s a dead fucking end. Wasn’t easy. Almost killed me. Getting off dope was, hands down, the toughest thing I’ve ever done. But in a way—stretching tenets—it was also the easiest, because there was no other choice. I was either quitting heroin, or I was going to die. I wasn’t going to keep living like that.
Sue: I understand you go back to the streets occasionally. Why?
Joe: I’m not sure I’d say I “go back to the streets.” A few months back, my friend Joe Lapin interviewed me (and fellow ex-junkie turned novelist Tom Pitts) for a piece in the LA Weekly. I spent a little time in L.A.’s Skid Row (and I mean little, like a few days). Lapin had us walking around Spring and 5th, asking how it felt to be back, and then Tom and I were, like, “What the fuck are we doing here? Dude, they are going to steal our cell phones and stab us!” I am a suburban, happily married dad these days. I go to bed at a reasonable hour. I try to revisit the streets through my work, because I believe there is beauty there, and I want to share that story. When I moved among them, I saw heartache and tragedy, but there’s something to be culled from like en extremis. But I ain’t fucking hanging out at 16th and Mission. No way. I go into the City now, I get angina.
Sue: What books have most influenced your life and why?
Joe: I named my son Holden, so that should answer that question. As for why Catcher in the Rye resonates so much? All I can say is people (who like the book) often say how it meant something to them at 16, and then when they reread it at 30, it meant something else, and so on. When I read CITR at 16, it meant the same damn thing it did at 40. I thought Holden was right then. And I think he’s right now. I heard the other day, from a fellow parent, that we tell our kids the way we think the world should be. Like, “sharing is fun!” I told my 3-and-a-half-year-old son that a few weeks back. He looked at me like I had two heads, and said, “No, it’s not.” Of course he’s right. Sharing isn’t fun. But as parents we say that shit to our kids. Just like our parents fed that BS to us. When we hit our teens, we realize how the world really is. And that we’ve been lied to. I never got over that, being lied to. Which I guess makes me a phony bastard for telling my kid that sharing is fun. But what else can I do? Raise a Republican?
Sue: You are a very busy guy. Can you tell us what you do on a weekly basis?
Joe: Depends if I am writing a new book or not. My year breaks down in quarters, with essentially half the year (in 3-month increments) dedicated to editing or writing. Roughly. First part of the year, I’m editing. I work for Gutter Books (along with Tom Pitts) as an acquisitions editor, and Tom and I also manage the Flash Fiction Offensive. I also co-produce a reading series, Lip Service West, with my lovely wife, Justine. And there is a lot of promotion that goes into that, as well as being an author. So basically from January through April, I am not writing, and doing this other stuff. Busy work in a lot of way. Answering emails from other writers takes up a huge chuck. What can I say? I’m a giver. I draft my novels in the spring, let them sit over the summer, while I go back to editing, promotion, whatever, and then in the fall I get back in to the writing, shoring up whatever that year’s book is. I’ve been doing it this way for the last few years, and it’s working out well. The idea is that each year, I get a book published. I am waiting on word from my agent (Elizabeth Kracht) that she’s sold my latest, Skunk Train.
Sue: Which authors had the most influence on your writing? Do you consider any of them a mentor, and why?
Joe: Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight) blurbed Lamentation, which was amazing. I read Stahl (also a former addict) when I was on the streets. I think I just found Permanent Midnight in a gutter somewhere, appropriately enough. I read that book and it blew me away, was such a revelation. I was, like, “Fuck, I can do this! I can get out of here!” These days? Hilary Davidson is a huge influence. She skirts that line between cutting edge and mainstream mystery I am after. And she does it so well. And, like almost every mystery writer I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, has been so giving and gracious with her time. Lynne Barrett was my thesis advisor in grad school. I couldn’t be doing what I do without her guidance. Kerouac has always been an influence. I am naming my next son Billy Pilgrim, so of course Vonnegut. But since Jack and Kurt are dead, and I never met them, I’m not sure I can call them “mentors.” Hilary, Lynne. David Corbett is another mystery writer who’s bent over backwards to help me out. Alan Kaufman as well. I’ve been very fortunate with mentors. I try to pay that forward to others now that things are rolling a bit for me.
Sue: What book(s) are you reading now?
Joe: I tend to read a few at once. And I am slow reader. But right now it’s Country Hardball by Steve Weddle, The Life and Times of Innis E. Coxman by R.P. Lester, and My Dark Places by Ellroy.
Sue: You have a new book coming out, Lamentation, scheduled to be released in October, this year. How did you come up with the title?
Joe: Same place I get all my best titles, my buddy in CT, Jimmy. Jimmy is a title machine! (My short story, which is probably my best, “Red Pistachios,” is also based on one of Jimmy’s ideas.) The novel is “set” in Northern New Hampshire, but I use my hometown of Berlin, CT, for most of the geography. There is a mountain in Berlin called Lamentation Mountain. (Not-so-coincidentally, another writing mentor, Tom Hazuka, who is actually the “killer” in “Pistachios,” lives on a street named after it.) After I’d written the book, I sent it to Jimmy. I think I had some shit-title like “Far from Here.” Working title. And Jimmy was like, “Um, why don’t you call it Lamentation?” Which was a no-shit moment. That mountain is central to the action, plus it has the biblical undertones, and works thematically. (In the novel, the character Charlie is based on Jimmy.)
Sue: Are the experiences in Lamentation based on someone you know, or experiences in your life?
Joe: I think anything a writer presents is going to be based on his or her life. Just a question of how much. In this case? Very. It’s sensitive subject matter, so we can leave it as the relationship between the brothers in Lamentation is drawn heavily from my own life, both before and after my addiction. I also used some topical current events as a backdrop. When people read it, that story I used will be clear. Hint: think Penn State.
Sue: Is there a message in Lamentation that you’d like readers to know?
Joe: Don’t do drugs? Seriously, it’s a tale of two brothers. I love my brothers, very much. The relationship with one of them is strained because of the drugs, but I think about him every day. In fact, most of my therapy sessions are dedicated to one of two topics: my brother. And my wife not being a blonde anymore.
Sue: Did someone you know inspire your protagonist, Jay Porter? Or is he completely fictional?
Joe: Jay Porter is based, in part, on my half-brother Jay Streeter. Jay is also in antiques up in New Hampshire, and a very down-to-earth “nice” guy. The rest is made up. (My half-brother is happily married, with three delightful kids, and last I checked, he wasn’t investigating any murders!) I don’t know about other writers, but for me, I’ve always found it useful to picture someone, a real someone, as I write. Especially when I start out. So I was definitely picturing my half-brother. But Jay Porter is really me. Chris is really me. My friend (screenwriter) Reed Bernstein once told me that every character he creates is just a side of him. I think that’s true to a large extent. When you sketch a character, you have to install truisms, to make him relatable, and no matter how much we think we know others, we really can only know our own motivations. That’s what writing is, a sort of pop psychology. Conversely, we also pile so much more in there that these final products are going to be wildly original, just by the very process. Jay Porter is part my half-brother, part me, part everyman, part you, part original, etc.
Sue: He’s such a well-rounded interesting character. Will we see him again? In other words, is there a sequel in the works?
Joe: Funny you should ask… I am actually supposed to be writing a sequel for Oceanview (Lamentation’s publisher). I have a treatment that was approved. When I set down to make that this year’s book, however, I had another idea I ran with. And I think that was the right call. I drafted that new book in about a month and a half. It’s called Occam’s Razor, and it is either the best thing I’ve ever written. Or I am insane. (Or both.) I am also a little leery about writing a sequel to a book that hasn’t been released. I’ve written sequels to books that haven’t sold before, and it’s depressing. I have a sequel to Wake the Undertaker (my favorite book to have written—I love that book—but it didn’t sell so well) that will never see the light of day. Guess I’m taking a wait and see approach.
Sue: Lamentation has been getting incredible praise from reviewers that read early released copies of the book. My favorite quote is, “The novel’s perfectly constructed plot unfolds with the thoughtful precision and menace of a cat burglar.”-- Hillary Davidson, author of Blood Always Tells. Can you share a little of Lamentation with us?
Joe: I love Hilary Davidson. It’s funny because I wrote Lamentation before I read my first Hilary Davidson book. But LM and her The Damage Done are really similar, thematically. At the heart of both are sibling relations and addiction, murder, mayhem, and the style, which, at least to me, feels very compatible. Reading The Damage Done in many ways gave me the permission to do what I was doing. I was striving for this commercial mystery slash edgy tone, vibe, aesthetic, whatever, which Hilary nails. I was, like, “OK. So this is a thing.” I’m not saying I did it as well as she, but just knowing I was on the right track proved paramount in completing the process.
Sue: What are you working on now?
Joe: Well, I’m going to let Occam’s Razor sit for the next few months (Stephen King’s advice of waiting at least 6 weeks between drafts), which means it’s back to editing and other stuff. I am wrapping up the highly anticipated Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Stories Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen, which features new, original work by Dennis Lehane, James Grady, and many more (including Hilary Davidson!), a project that benefits veterans and the Bob Woodruff Foundation. Gutter just released Mike Miner’s The Immortal Game, which I acquired/edited, a fantastic hardboiled mob/hardboiled take; and next up is J. Buck Williams’s The Triangle: The True Story of the World’s First Terrorist Band. (Gutter seems to be cornering a market on rock ’n’ roll noir.) Plus, y’know husband and dad duty, and I have an actual job-job copyediting. I will also be teaching a course on mystery writing, Demystifying Mystery, over at SF’s Writing Grotto (9/16 – 10/14, Tuesdays, 6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.). Bay Area writers interested in taking the 5-week course can contact me personally: joe@joeclifford.com. So I’ll be busy. I don’t really do “fun” (ask my wife). I work. And if I am not working, I am probably having a panic attack.
Sue: Do you have any advice for other writers?
Joe: I get this one a lot. And it’s a two-parter. A.) Quit. Seriously, if you can do anything else and earn a living, do it. Writing is rejection, heartache, and very little glory. B.) And those of you who weren’t dissuaded and are still here, who feel they have to do it because it’s who they are, well, sorry, because it’s a brutal profession, but I will give you the best advice I’ve ever gotten re: writing. And I’ve gotten a lot of good advice. This sucks to hear if you don’t have a book out or are struggling to find an agent and/or landing spot for your work. I mean, when someone said this to me, I wanted to punch him in the throat. But it’s true. And it’s encouraging if you think (really, really hard) about it: If you are good enough and you keep at it, you will get published. The trick is that “keeping at it.” Because writing is a lot of rejection and self-doubt, which feed off one another. Keep at it. Oh, and read the literary magazines you are trying to get into. Sounds like a no-brainer, but like my thesis advisor Lynne used to say, “Everyone wants to get in literary magazines; no one wants to read them.” The fastest trip to disappointment is to write a story, then try to find it a home. Square peg, round hole.
Sue: As I’ve said, I am a big fan of your books. Do you have anything specific you’d like to say to your fans/readers?
Joe: Thanks. Seriously, knowing you have readers, however many or few, who truly appreciate what you do, makes all the difference (between sitting down and writing and saying, Fuck it, I’m watching Law & Order).
Sue: I can’t wait to read Lamentation! Folks, if you are looking for nail-biting tension on every page, a book that you can't put down, and a story that stays with you long after you've read it, take advantage of the pre-order price and save 26% off the hardcover!
Joe: Thanks again for having me!
Joe Clifford’s Lamentation
September 26, 2014 by The Editor 1 Comment
Since getting off of the streets, where he spent most of the 1990s, Joe Clifford has made writing his life. He is a “rock ‘n’ roll” writer who comes from a cutting-edge background and has successfully transitioned to the mainstream, which allows him to keep afloat in both worlds. Joe is the acquisitions editor for Gutter Books and managing editor of The Flash Fiction Offensive. He is also the producer of Lip Service West, a “gritty, real, raw” reading series in Oakland, California, and the author of three books (Choice Cuts, Junkie Love, Wake the Undertaker, and Lamentation).
His latest novel, Lamentation, “straightforward and edgy, gnaws with nail-biting tension on every page” (Robert Dugioni).
In a frigid New Hampshire winter, Jay Porter is trying to eke out a living and maintain some semblance of a relationship with his former girlfriend and their two-year-old son. When he receives an urgent call that Chris, his drug-addicted and chronically drunk brother, is being questioned by the sheriff about his missing junkie business partner, Jay feels obliged to come to his rescue.
After Jay negotiates his brother’s release from the county jail, Chris disappears into the night. As Jay begins to search for him, he is plunged into a cauldron of ugly lies and long-kept secrets that could tear apart his small hometown and threaten the lives of Jay and all those he holds dear.
Powerful forces come into play that will stop at nothing until Chris is dead and the secrets he holds are destroyed.
Joe was interviewed by Justin Bendell for Sliver of Stone Magazine.
JoeBio3
You were raised in Connecticut. You live in California now. Lamentation is the first of your books exclusively set in New England. How did you come to the decision to return home (I use home loosely here) in your fiction?
When I was at FIU, my first attempt at a thesis novel revolved around two brothers set in New England (where I grew up). I got about seven chapters in and abandoned it. Lamentation is, in a very, very loose definition of the word, a reworking of that novel. I mean, the two brothers part remained, the setting, but you can’t really say it’s a reworking. I didn’t know how to fucking write a novel until I got to FIU and Lynne Barrett got a hold of me. Lamentation retained exactly one line from that first attempt (“a talking chicken named Buck Buck”). Lynne Barrett taught me causality, which is how you write a novel. Or any story, really. My first efforts, like that of a lot of new writers, I think, tended to revolve around scenes. Clever bits of dialogue, two characters in a bar or coffee shop getting pithy. Call it the Tarantino effect. Great filmmaker. Lousy guy to emulate. The thing is all that “Royale with Cheese” stuff in Pulp Fiction actually advances the plot. When most of us try it, we just end up with two dudes talking about cheeseburgers.
Lamentation features a relationship between two brothers. Is the sibling dynamics in the novel, which I found to be well rendered, born of personal experience? In other words, how much of you is in the characters of Jay and Chris? Do you have a brother?
Well, Jay Porter (in Lamentation) deals in secondhand antiques in Northern New Hampshire. I have a half-brother named Jay Streeter, who used to work secondhand antiques in Northern New Hampshire. I certainly pictured my half brother Jay when I was writing the character of Jay, although they are not very similar. I just like to have a mental image. Jay Porter is really me. I’ve had siblings and family members who’ve battled addiction, as have I (obviously—Junkie Love details my relationship with my other brother). But Chris (the addict brother in Lamentation) is also me. I’ve been on both sides of addiction—the scumbag addict, and the straight-and-narrow one dealing with the fallout, which allows unique perspective. It’s also fiction. That’s the nice part about fiction: you can make shit up. Junkie Love is, for all intents and purposes (except marketing and legality) true. Lamentation is still steeped in that world (drugs), but just being a novel affords greater latitude. And it’s a plot-driven story. Character-driven too. But I wanted a page-turner.
Lamentation-high-res
What lured you into the world of gritty pulp/crime fiction? Did you read it as a young person, pre-California drifter phase?
I remember one of my first workshops with Lynne. She made a comment to the class how it felt like, at any minute, my stories could turn noir. And I was, like, “Wow! Really? Because I love noir. It’s all I read!” And she had this look on her face, like, “No shit, dumbass. That’s how it works.” But I still thought of myself as a “literary” writer back them. I looked down on genre. I wanted to write the (ahem, pompous cough) Great American Novel. Fuck the Great American Novel. I like what I like. When I dropped the literary pretension part, my work became imminently more readable. Also, it’s just who I am. I am a pop guy. I like Bruce Springsteen (and Taylor Swift!). I think The Rock is one of the greatest movies ever made. And I’ve read plenty of classics. I named my kid Holden. But I also read War and Peace (which is truly amazing), and I’ve read Crime and Punishment (equally brilliant). I’ve never read Finnegan’s Wake, but who really reads that book except to say he or she did? I don’t know. Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe there isn’t this divide between literary and genre, academic and street. All I know is I’ll take Jim Thompson and Charles Bukowski over David Foster Wallace and Liz Bishop, any day. Not saying my choices are “better.” Just that’s what I enjoy reading.
Since graduating with your MFA, you’ve had 4 books published. Not all MFA students find this level of success. I suspect the road from post-MFA to now wasn’t as smooth and easy for you as it seems. I mean, Publisher’s Weekly gave you a starred review for Lamentation a couple weeks back! Tell me about the time between MFA and publishing your first book. What were the major challenges? Did you ever have a “fuck this writing shit” moment?
When I graduated, I thought I had a good handle on the path of literary success: write great novel (check), get agent, become bestseller. I’m still not sure how it works. I just know it doesn’t work like that. Post-grad school depression is a very real thing. You spend 3 years working toward this goal (getting published), which you think will be the answer to all life’s problems. And then you’re time is over, the new crop is ushered in, and you feel, well, abandoned. At least I did. But the professors at FIU did their job, they taught me to write, and like John Dufresne says, If writing was easy, everyone would do it. Sometimes it feels like everyone does it. Or says they do it. But for a career? It’s hard. And, yeah, I wanted to quit. Up until things began to move, I used to tell Mike Creeden (another FIU alum), “Fuck it. If I am going to fail, I’d rather fail at rock ’n’ roll!” (Mike and I both play music too.) So, yeah, I had a lot of “fuck this writing shit” moments. It was especially tough when other classmates were getting book deals. I sorta hated them. Which is natural, I think. And I don’t want anyone to hate me now. Because it’s not that glamorous. And there sure as shit ain’t a lot of money. But the getting a book deal. That’s attainable. It’s just when you want something so bad, and don’t have it, that it feels impossible. And time . . . slows. After I graduated FIU, it felt like forever until I got an agent. But I graduated in ’08, and by the end of ’09, I had an agent. We live in this immediate e-culture. So you send an email with your submission and are checking it seven minutes later for a response. It produces extreme anxiety. And it’s unreliable. Prospective agents (or their assistants) aren’t even checking your e-mail for six months. (And it would take too long to talk about it, but cold-calling agents is a dead end.) The best writing advice I ever got: if you are good enough, and keep at it, you will get published. When I heard that, I didn’t have a book out, or an agent, and I was, like, Fuck you! But it’s true. The people I know who keep at it, don’t give up, they just find a way. It’s a crooked path, and I can’t tell you how to replicate it, other than to keep doing it and bulling your way forward. And don’t stop working on new stuff. Waiting for good news from the e-mailman will drive you nuts.
Now that you’ve dipped your literary toes into the ice and snow of northern New Hampshire, any thoughts of returning? Or perhaps you have a Miami novel up your sleeve?
Oceanview (Lamentation’s publisher) wants a sequel to Lamentation, so I will be drafting that before year’s end. I have the story mapped out, know the general plotline and arc, just a matter of making the time to get back in there. Funny you mention Miami. My new novel (which I am just about ready to have my agent start shopping) Occam’s Razor, takes place in South Florida. As you maybe heard my time at FIU was not exactly smooth. I went through a divorce and almost died in a motorcycle accident. I hated the place when I left. But my opinion of the place has softened a bit in recent years. Occam’s Razor gave me a chance to explore some of those feelings. And I know every writer says this whenever he finishes a new book, but I honestly think this new novel is the best thing I’ve ever written. So maybe it’s my reconciliatory opportunity to be friends with Miami again.
Joe Clifford Was a Skid Row Heroin Addict. Now He Has a New Novel, Junkie Love
THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2013 AT 10:10 A.M. BY JOSEPH LAPIN
Joe Clifford
Joe Clifford
Tom Mitchell
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"This is the shelter," Joe Clifford says. He's standing outside the Los Angeles Mission on Fifth Street with his best friend and former running buddy, author Tom Pitts. A car backfires. Then a group of transsexuals struts by and waves. "I never thought I would see this place again."
Clifford, 42, is in Los Angeles to participate in the Noir at the Bar reading series, but he's also revisiting the place where, more than a decade ago, he began hurtling toward bottom and finally finding sobriety.
He walks further into Skid Row, memories returning him to the time when he was homeless, a wandering junkie in downtown L.A.
"It's like recalling a book you read," Clifford observes, passing tents and men with their lives bundled up in trash bags, "or a movie you saw. I feel nothing."
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He points to a man across the street — a former vision of himself — sitting on the curb outside the Los Angeles Mission. "You see this guy? He's just waiting for the doors to open at 5 [p.m.]. What they do is you have to have a lottery. You have to get a number around 3. They tell you to wait — around 5 usually — to see if your number is drawn."
In his new autobiographical novel, Junkie Love, Clifford writes about his time as an addict. Before his days were centered on trying to find a fix, Clifford grew up in Connecticut. But he quit Central Connecticut State University and moved to San Francisco in 1992, spurred to adventure by Jack Kerouac and The Replacements' song "Left of the Dial."
Within a year he was hooked on meth and heroin. He started working at a print shop, but he couldn't handle the pressure, and eventually he was just running schemes to get high. In 2001, Clifford left San Francisco to live in L.A. with his then-wife — who had schizophrenia and was a recovering addict. She was trying to stay clean, but Clifford was still getting high.
At the advice of her sponsor, she kicked him out of her house. He found himself homeless, out of money and with an arrest warrant hanging over his head, stemming from a check-fraud racket he had been running in San Francisco.
Yet "I don't see myself here," Clifford says, staring at the people on the corner waiting for the shelter to open. Two men are seated on the curb, eating chicken and throwing the bones into the street. "When I think of myself sitting there, I don't see that."
With nowhere to go and withdrawing, Clifford checked himself into a psychiatric ward, claiming he was suicidal. They eventually released him, and he spent subsequent days searching for any drug to alter his consciousness — but mostly heroin. Later he checked himself into the Salvation Army facility to try to get clean, but he left after they tried to make him go to church. With nowhere else to turn — his parents refused to send him any more money after 17 failed attempts in rehab — he ended up at the L.A. Mission, a narrative arc that appears in his new novel.
"Even though I was living that life, I always knew it would make a good story," Clifford says. He's got tattoos all over his arms, and he looks like a former NFL linebacker who had an awakening one day and decided to quit football to write instead. "What makes you so scared is when you realize you're not just doing research anymore, and you realize you're a scumbag junkie and you're not getting out. And that feeling could last for days or for hours. It's a bad feeling. ... I started writing this book when I was in L.A., when I was really gone."
The farther Clifford walks along Skid Row, the more uncomfortable he becomes. He's looking over his shoulder, making sure the people walking past him are cool. It's not that he's scared, he stresses — it's just that he lived here, and he knows how quickly things can get out of control.
The difference between his life as an addict in San Francisco and in Los Angeles was stark. He had street-level cons in San Francisco and friends to borrow money from, but his cons never worked in Los Angeles, and he knew no one in particular, except for his wife. "This place is sprawling," Clifford says. "This is a nasty, mean place, and they sniffed me out for just being a little hoodlum. You get pushed around. They take your money."
For Clifford, Los Angeles was the end of the road.
Asked whether he still sees himself sitting on the curb, waiting for a spot in the shelter, he says, "I don't want to see myself. I don't want to go there ..."
He turns around to leave Skid Row. He says, "We don't belong here anymore."
Two weeks later, Clifford is back at home in San Francisco. In 2001, after leaving L.A., he was so close to suicide that he nearly jumped off a building in Albany, N.Y. Instead he managed to turn his life around and get clean. He has a loving wife and a son. He has published two novels, Junkie Love and Wake the Undertaker, and a short-story collection, Choice Cuts. As editor of Gutter Books, he also runs Lip Service West — a gritty, raw literary event in San Francisco, which gives ex-junkies a chance to share their stories alongside up-and-coming writers.
But with the publication of Junkie Love and his book tour, it became clear to Clifford that he had to confront a part of his past that he's tried to ignore, even as he's been writing about it. He needed to experience the ultimate closure — literally closing the book.
"I'm pointing out all these scenes, and it didn't matter," Clifford says over the phone of his recent return to Skid Row. "Then, it hit me. You're kind of on autopilot; you're just kind of seeing all these scenes. ... You put up a façade — or a coping mechanism — so you don't have to deal with the actual feelings of it, but it chips away at you, and then all of a sudden it hits you. And it hits you hard."
Junkie Love reads more like a hard-boiled memoir than a novel — placing it squarely in L.A.'s noir tradition.
"Noir is all about hopelessness," Clifford says. "That's hopelessness personified. Noir is one of the reasons why L.A. has such a rich tradition — or any big city. Loneliness and hopelessness is compounded by the fact that you're surrounded by people, but you're still miles away. When we were walking on Skid Row, we're 5 feet away from these people, but from their point of view, we couldn't be further away."
Mostly, Clifford says, he can reconcile the chapters in his life — he's both the loving father and the former addict who once stole from his mother.
"Most of it's easy to accept," he says. "You have a story; it's a part of your past. It's more how do you live with the parts you can't accept."
Clifford, Joe. Lamentation
Nancy H. Fontaine
Library Journal.
139.15 (Sept. 15, 2014): p64.
COPYRIGHT 2014 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Clifford, Joe. Lamentation. Oceanview. Oct. 2014. 240p. ISBN 9781608091331. $25.95; ebk. ISBN 9781608091348. F
In the midst of a frigid winter in New Hampshire's north country, Jay Porter is trying to make ends meet in Ashton, the small town where he lived
as a young child. Jay was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in Concord after his parents were killed, their car careening off Lamentation Bridge,
but he visited Ashton every weekend and moved back as soon as he could. Now his ex-girlfriend, their two-year-old son, and his drug-addicted
older brother Chris all live there, so where else would Jay reside? After Chris's business partner goes missing and then Chris vanishes, Jay tries to
track his brother down and clear his name. In the process, he uncovers secrets of the most powerful family in town and must face some of his own
as well. VERDICT Clifford's fourth book (after Choice Cuts, Wake the Undertaker, and Junkie Love) paints a bleak but honest picture of northern
New England. A taut thriller rendered in vivid prose, this book contains only a few surprises but builds a relentless, compelling momentum.
Recommended for noir lovers and readers of novels set in New England.--Nancy H. Fontaine, Norwich P.L., VT
Fontaine, Nancy H.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Fontaine, Nancy H. "Clifford, Joe. Lamentation." Library Journal, 15 Sept. 2014, p. 64. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA382279205&it=r&asid=c57b2aaf4132a1e5faef210aefb0422b. Accessed 4 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A382279205
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December Boys
Don Crinklaw
Booklist.
112.17 (May 1, 2016): p24.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
December Boys. By Joe Clifford. June 2016. 288p. Oceanview, $26.95 (9781608091713); e book (9781608091720).
It was Kingsley Amis who noted that the straight talk of the hard-boiled gods--Spade, Marlowe--was often just a form of rudeness. We don't have
to wonder what Amis would make of Jay Porter, the bad-news hero of Clifford's latest. Porter rages at his wife, humiliates anyone who helps him,
and takes a swing at a cop. We're pleased when the cop slams the jerk against a table. Why, then, do we keep flipping pages, wanting more?
Maybe it's the story, set in a numbing New Hampshire winter. Porter is an insurance investigator who accidentally exposes a scam worked by a
poor family desperate for cash. A judge sentences one fraudster to an inappropriately harsh punishment, and suddenly the judge's family is living
large. Porter's startled curiosity leads him to a big-money attempt to privatize prisons. The author suggests it's the pain in Porter's life that has him
acting so awfully, but whether readers buy that or not, they're still in for some fine writing, plus an interesting mix of people and a truly offbeat, if
arguably rude, hero.--Don Crinklaw
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Crinklaw, Don. "December Boys." Booklist, 1 May 2016, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453293611&it=r&asid=3bf01491fe290817f3da8b815942ba13. Accessed 4 Feb.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453293611
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December Boys: A Jay Porter Novel
Publishers Weekly.
263.16 (Apr. 18, 2016): p99.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
December Boys: A Jay Porter Novel
Joe Clifford. Oceanview (Midpoint, dist.), $26.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-60809-171-3
Clifford's harsh, emotionally raw sequel to 2014's Lamentation finds Jay Porter, now a New Hampshire insurance adjustor, suffering from the
effects of his guilt and grief surrounding the "suicide by cop" of his junkie brother, Chris. Separated from his wife and son by his anger and heavy
drinking, Jay is distracted from his personal problems by a court case involving a teenager who's arrested for minor drug possession and sent to a
private behavioral modification detention facility. Jay investigates and learns that this questionable practice is widespread. Portrayals of the men
trapped in the sea of toxic masculinity are spot on, though those of an opportunistic female clerk and the families bullied into sending their kids
up the river ring much less true. Still, the deeply affecting essence of the book is really in Jay's struggle with managing his depression, rage, and
panic attacks. Despite a bit of mental health care preachiness, Clifford has written a very human tale of redemption. Agent: Elizabeth Kracht,
Kimberly Cameron & Associates. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"December Boys: A Jay Porter Novel." Publishers Weekly, 18 Apr. 2016, p. 99. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA450361297&it=r&asid=eafcffb1909435d5da4ac30db2fbc039. Accessed 4 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A450361297
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Lamentation
Publishers Weekly.
261.34 (Aug. 25, 2014): p80.
COPYRIGHT 2014 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Lamentation
Joe Clifford. Oceanview (Midpoint, dist.), $25.95 (240p) ISBN 978-1-60809-133-1
Jay Porter, the narrator of this powerful novel set during a bitter New Hampshire winter, is drifting through life, stuck in his hometown, where he
has a dead-end job sorting junk and a hopeless relationship with his ex-girlfriend and their toddler son. He's marinating in sour anger that spills
out at those who criticize his listless existence--largely because he realizes they're right. When his junkie older brother, Chris, is suspected of
murdering his partner in a computer recycling computer business, Jay is barely motivated to help; he doesn't believe Chris's statement that the
hard drive of a discarded computer contained evidence of an evil conspiracy. It gradually becomes obvious, though, that local powerbrokers are
panicked about something on the missing drive, so Jay has one last chance at salvation if he's able to act. Clifford (Junkie Love) understands
human potential for moral collapse and redemption, and his lean, gritty prose never lets characters or readers off the hook. Agent: Elizabeth
Kracht, Kimberly Cameron & Assoc. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Lamentation." Publishers Weekly, 25 Aug. 2014, p. 80+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA380525130&it=r&asid=867c4e92030738a305b6d97019902668. Accessed 4 Feb.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A380525130
07
Jul
Book Review: LAMENTATION by Joe Clifford
Tags: Crime, Joe Clifford, Lamentation
Categories: Book Reviews
Lamentation Cover
Available this October from Oceanview Publishing
Pre-order here:
Lamentation, Joe Clifford’s riveting new novel, is a page-turner in the classic sense. You can’t put it down. You need to know what comes next.
At the heart of this particular bundle of darkness is an ordinary guy, Jay Porter, trying to get along. He salvages anything of value from empty and abandoned homes, is out of work for long stretches of time, is estranged from ex-girlfriend, Jenny, the love of his life and mother of his young son, Aiden. The bane of Jay’s life is his older brother, Chris. To say that Chris is a loser is an understatement. Chris has a drug problem – and has had for years. He can’t stay clean for long, can’t do much of anything useful. He shows up needing money, a place for the night, and then is gone, back in to the seamy world he chose to live in. Suspicion was cast on Chris years before, when their parents were killed in a car accident. There’s talk of mechanical tampering – a deliberate sabotage of the vehicle.
Chris again becomes the focus of an investigation, when his partner in a computer salvage business turns up dead. This is just the beginning of a very thorny plot that weaves a number of unsavory elements together in Ashton, a small New Hampshire town. Jay overcomes his deep frustration with Chris and attempts to help him out. Layer by layer, Clifford peels back the crime until we arrive at a place we really didn’t expect to be and wish we could escape from in a hurry. What we thought was true, isn’t. What we couldn’t imagine being the case turns out to be true.
Yet Clifford doesn’t tie everything up in one neat package. One question goes unanswered, leaving the reader to wonder and think about the novel long after the last page. As a writer myself, I think this is a great device for keeping the story alive. Another thing I appreciate, again as a writer, is that Clifford’s characters are real people, with levels of complexity, not just types, as is the case with other crime novels I’ve read.
Lastly, on a personal note, as someone who grew up in upstate New York, Clifford’s rendition of snow, cold, and darkness rang wonderfully true for me, and make me glad that I now live in a much milder climate.
Lamentation is truly a fine read.