24/04/2024
Here is a bit of a teaser for my latest novel, which probably won't be published for at least two or three months:
Billy Johnson was obsessed with the life and legend of his great-grandfather, the notorious pirate Pegleg Josiah Johnson. And he made sure his younger brothers and sisters were similarly obsessed. Every summer they gathered for a family retreat on Orcas Island, where Billy—a wealthy, womanizing, bully—bored the living daylights out of his younger siblings and their families with tales of their notorious pirate ancestor. Until the year little brother Bryce could not take it any longer.
"The Descendants of the Pirate Pegleg Josiah Johnson is an outlandish family saga that moves from the Klondike gold rush in the nineteenth century to the swamps of Louisiana during the Great Depression to modern-day Washington state.
Early readers have said:
“I kind of loved this little homage to a regular American family. A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll. Even when they found wealth, their values were just imitations of the wealthy class. Generations . . . spanning two centuries, from opposite extremes of the nation, with mostly humdrum lives and an embellished family legend barely holding them together. Sibling rivalries, evolving marital relationships, a range of sexualities, aging, infectious diseases . . . there is a lot going on in this story.” – Don Martin
“This is the sort of book that makes one long to break down and utter those terrible cliches: larger than life, rollicking, a boisterous family saga.
“It is not larger than life, but exactly the size of life, and that's what makes it good. This is perhaps Clayton’s most ambitious book, setting out to deliver not the history of one or two people, but of a whole family, and yet cause us to share in their lives.” – Jack Butler
