{"id":30367,"date":"2024-08-05T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30367"},"modified":"2026-05-09T12:20:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T16:20:41","slug":"caleb-crain-clay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2024\/08\/05\/caleb-crain-clay\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Crain: “Clay”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Clay”<\/strong><\/span>
by Caleb Crain<\/span>
from the August 12, 2024 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

T<\/span>his is going up a week later than it should because I have been away, but I’m back! Those of you who have already read this week’s fiction can now comment on it, and those of you (like me) who haven’t can now be reminded of it. For the purposes of having an easily searchable archive, I am going to date this post for when it would have been up had I been able to follow my usual schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caleb Crain has been publishing since the 1990s and has two novels out (2013’s Necessary Errors and 2019’s Overthrow). I know I’ve seen his name, but I do not know if I’ve ever read any of his work, even the one short story he published in The New Yorker in September of 2022 (“Easter”). I do plan to go back and fix my oversight with “Easter,” and I’ll post there when I am able. Have any of you read Crain’s work before?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how “Clay” begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The county had recently put in a light at the intersection of 14 and 273, because of all the semis that were coming through. The Old Spot was a little south of that. It was a bar in what had once been a Mexican place, and a big wooden board with the old menu, painted by hand, was still standing in the empty lot beside it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Coming from a small town, I love how this establishes, very quickly, a familiar place. I am looking forward to catching up! Please share any of your thoughts below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s New Yorker fiction is Caleb Crain’s “Clay.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1445,94],"tags":[1461],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-caleb-crain","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2024-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/August-12-2024-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7TN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30367"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31155,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30367\/revisions\/31155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30367"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}