Grit Before Grace
by JD Clapp
While a writer for a weekly independent newspaper, Jim Jackson, idolized the likes of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. When the love of Jim’s life, Ellie, died shortly after giving birth to their daughter Kristen, Jim drowned his sorrows in a sea of booze in some of Los Angeles’s seediest bars, while leaving his sister Misty to raise his infant. Once Jim finally came home and sobered up, he wrote a book on his experiences, Becoming Bukowski, that became a cult classic.
Two decades later, with his book still in print, Jim is well-off, uninspired, and self-absorbed. When his frequent headaches morph into more serious symptoms, Jim learns he has a slow growing brain tumor. The news motivates Jim to write a sequel to his classic in hopes of cementing his legacy as more than a one-hit wonder. He returns to LA to resume a life of debauchery, but as his symptoms worsen, Jim becomes tormented by unexplainable visions of dead wife Ellie and abandons his drunken reboot. Still wanting to write one last book, Jim sets off on a road-trip that morphs into a series of encounters with friends, family and strangers that stimulates self-examination, fosters regret, and leads him to make amends before his time runs out.
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Praise for J.D. Clapp and Grit Before Grace
“Since releasing A Good Man Goes South, JD Clapp has rapidly ascended to become Indie Lit's Poet Laureate of ne'er-do-wells and down-and-outs, gear-chuckers and poachers, meth heads and murderers. Here, he follows a has-been writer drowning in booze and past failures and the haunting memory of his long-deceased wife as he tries to chase down one last story before a terminal diagnosis does him in. In Grit Before Grace, Clapp expands the rough-cut world of his poetry and short fiction to offer a debut novel that's part meta-narrative, part travelogue, yet delivered whole by the unvarnished observations that have consistently defined his work.”
—Jonathan Danielson, author of The Lowest Basin: Arizona Stories
“In Grit Before Grace, Jim Jackson is a novelist facing many demons, forever chasing the success of his first book that paid tribute to the late great grit writer, Charles Bukowski. Jackson seems destined to follow in Bukowski’s footsteps with his hard-drinking lifestyle, until he's faced with his own mortality, leading him on a path of self-discovery and making amends for the carnage of his past. At times a meditative road trip with a cast of characters and adventures, J.D. Clapp’s effortless prose is like settling into the cab of an old truck, taking a long drag of a grit, and living in the poems of Bukowski’s What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. For fans of grit lit, Bukowski, and walking well through the fires, Grit Before Grace is a ride you don't want to miss!”
—Sabrina Hicks, author of Coyote Girl
“With Grit Before Grace, Clapp has given us an exceptionally haunted novel. Ghosts of love, failure, and fatherhood demand a rise to action or a continued life of performance for a man in bed with self-destruction. Jim Jackson is a character destined to live forever in the Grit Lit canon.”
—Sheldon Lee Compton, author of The Old Invisible
“JD Clapp has proven himself a master of American realism, crafting stories that unfold like hushed conversations at the end of a bar. In his debut novel, he delivers that same emotional force with a deft tenderness, introducing a protagonist as flawed as he is deeply compelling. With unflinching honesty and grace, Clapp offers a powerful, heartfelt portrait of a man wrestling with his choices, and striving to make peace with the life he’s lived.”
—Dan Russell, author of Poor Birds