JOHN J. CLAYTON

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Works

Mitzvah Man
TTU Press, 2011

Boston businessman Adam Friedman goes a little crazy—or becomes a little holy—after the death of his beloved wife. He becomes a very different kind of superhero. In a frenzy of mitzvot—good deeds, commandments—he saves lives and helps the needy. His teenage daughter begins to wonder if there isn't something more than a shared joke to the Mitzvah Man T-shirt she has designed for him. When Friedman is propelled into the headlines, followers gather on his doorstep. Voices, dreams, and auras visit him. Miracles occur among family, friends, and strangers alike. But while some hail the Mitzvah Man as a modern-day prophet, others brand him a madman, and he is in danger of losing custody of his daughter. Through his experiences of love and loss, beauty and pain, Friedman's daily quest reveals the unexpected ways in which God may inhabit us.

Wrestling with Angels: New and Collected Stories
Toby Press, 2007

The new stories gathered in a section called "The Promised Land" are linked by their emotional music, and most originally appeared in Commentary; others were published in Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, and Missouri Review. PLUS: all the stories from Bodies of the Rich, and from Radiance, plus four uncollected stories.

Kuperman’s Fire
Toby Press, 2007


Kuperman’s Fire is a novel from a Jewish perspective about the selling of chemical muni¬tions abroad. Against this story, the multiple ways of being Jews in contemporary America play themselves out in the tensions within Michael’s family, a family at the edge of divorce.

The Man I Never Wanted to Be
Permanent Press, 1998

David Rosen is pulled into events that cause him to question his basic beliefs about himself--especially his non-violence. It is also a story of David's love for a woman who runs a center for battered women, a woman whose own child has been killed by an abuser.

What Are Friends For?
Little, Brown & Co., 1979

Love story of a seventies radical and an older woman.

Radiance: Ten Stories
Ohio State University Press, 1998

These stories are Jewish in background and religious vision. Stories of fathers and sons, husbands and wives, they hover between the spiritual and the psychological, yet are grounded in painful and joyful realities. Runner Up, Jewish Book Award, 1998

Bodies of the Rich
University of Illinois Press, 1984

Short stories, mostly Jewish. Includes Clayton's fiction from O.Henry and Best American Short Stories annual collections. Includes "Cambridge is Sinking" and "Old 3 a.m. Story"







Selected Fiction

Mitzvah Man
Boston businessman Adam Friedman goes a little crazy—or becomes a little holy—after the death of his beloved wife.
Wrestling with Angels: New and Collected Stories
Most of Clayton's stories published in magazines and collected here for the first time; and all stories in his two published collections.
Kuperman’s Fire
A novel about Jewish heritage and about criminal evil. 2007
The Man I Never Wanted to Be
Story of a gentle, liberal professor who has to cope with a man of violence. 1998
What Are Friends For?
Love story of a seventies radical and an older woman. 1979
Radiance: Ten Stories
Runner-up for National Jewish Book Award in 1998.
Bodies of the Rich
Short stories, mostly Jewish including those appearing in O.Henry and Best American Stories collections. 1984.