Clay
Clay is a coming of age story that also chronicles a coming to awareness at a time of social, racial, and environmental unease. Twelve-year-old Luke and an older boy, Jimmy, become involved with a longstanding but threatened Black community located near their predominantly white enclave at the edges of New York City in the 1970s. The overt threats come from developers (including Jimmy’s father) and from a nearby toxic landfill—and Luke gradually learns how much these menaces are intertwined and how they are linked to his family and community. Over one eventful summer that moves toward crisis and confrontation, Luke learns deeper truths about his seemingly idyllic town and the wider world beyond it.
Frank Meola has published work in a variety of forms and places, including New England Review and the New York Times. His Times travel essay on Rachel Carson in Maine was published in the book Footsteps. He has written frequently on Emerson and Thoreau. His newest essay, in Michigan Quarterly Review, centers on the ambiguities of Hispanic identity in America, based partly on his own experience. Three of Meola's stories have been finalists in fiction competitions. He has an MFA from Columbia University, and teaches writing and humanities at NYU. Frank lives in Brooklyn, NY with his husband and their two cats.
