"Clay," a new short story in the New Yorker

“Clay,” a new short story of mine, is in this week’s issue of The New Yorker (the one dated 12 August 2024), with a lovely illustration by Daniele Castellano that’s reminiscent of de Chirico. The magazine recorded me reading the story aloud, and there’s also a short Q&A with me about it. Please check it out!

In other news, both my novels recently got unexpected shout-outs. In its list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, the New York Times Book Review added this note at the end of the entry for Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty: “Liked it? Try ‘Necessary Errors,’ by Caleb Crain.”

And in a July 13 round-up of “great political novels,” Sophia Nguyen of the Washington Post called my novel Overthrow “the best American political novel of the 21st century,” which was pretty nice!