CLAY CENTER

A Novel

By Phil Condon

Published by Eastern Washington University Press
Spokane, 2004

News: Clay Center chosen as semi-finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Awards read more

Voted among ALA's Booklist Top Ten
First Novels of 2004

Read the reviews

Clay Center is a love story, a tragedy, and an historical coming-of-age novel. Set from January through December 1969, the novel's protagonist, Miller Silas, and his girlfriend, Maureena Ocear, are both each other's first lover and first true love. They are also bright young idealists who are confused, bewildered, worn down, and worn out by the political and economic forces that control the government and wage the war. During the course of the year, they try to counter the negative and destructive energies around them with the strength of their love for each other and for their closest friends, Durham, Grant, and Carlila.

Through Miller's story, the novel seeks to bring a fresh honest perspective to a time of great change, hope, despair and dignity--a time that has been most often maligned and masked with either dismissive or euphemistic stereotypes. Along the wild ride of the story itself, the novel asks readers to examine the causes, uses, consequences, and justifications of state-sanctioned violence and of heartfelt resistance to it. Miller's story also implicitly asks readers to evaluate the extent to which the contradictions in our national life that the turmoils of 1969 so starkly revealed were resolved, and to what extent they remain among and inside us today.

Praise for Clay Center:

"Here is a political novel that feels completely organic . . . . First-novelist Condon, in low-key, heartfelt prose, delivers a near perfect portrait of what it was like to be young and adrift in the late 60's, capturing the easy camaraderie of longtime friends, their idealism, and also their confusion and desperation. Winner of the Faulkner Society Novel Award, this is a subtle, graceful look at the heroic struggle to find meaning in the face of chaos and despair."
— from Joanne Wilkinson, Starred Review for adult fiction, Booklist, 4/15/04

"Clay Center is a touching love story, a psychological study of alienation and grief, and a startling examination of that time in which the American dream was revealed to contain its own nightmare."
— from Valerie Martin, Final Judge, 2001 Faulkner Society Novel Judge Author of Mary Reilly and Property, 2003 Orange Prize Winner

"In Clay Center, Condon skillfully and movingly recreates the longing for authenticity and intimacy as well as the confusion and desperation of the Vietnam era. I cared about his characters the way I care about lost friends."
— from Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife

"With Condon at the wheel, and with narrative drive to burn, we are in good hands. How I loved and admired Miller Silas, this timely novel's hero (yes, hero) for his beating and indefatigable good heart."
— from Robin Lippincott, author of Our Acadia and Mr. Dalloway

"If you care at all about the idealistic hopes that ran so strong in the 1960's, and grieve for the seemingly irrevocable losses of faith suffered since, Clay Center is your book. Phil Condon has given us a story dense with memorable characters acting out vivid and sometimes heartbreaking lives. A great read."
— from William Kittredge, author of Owning It All and A Hole in the Sky

Clay Center
EWU Press (Eastern Washington University), Spokane 2004
Paper: ISBN 0910055955 Price 18.95