Until The Dawn

by Alec Clayton

Red Warner, a famous artist, vanishes at the height of his career. A childhood friend searches for him and tells the story of his family going back generations. Until the Dawn is a coming of age... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0980032210
• ISBN13: 9780980032215
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Claytonworks
• Length: 178 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Truth about subjects many people fear: GREAT READ!

Normally I don't get emotional about books that are strange to me. This read was different. Clayton is an excellent writer and has a way of pulling at your heat-strings. Touching, moving, and a must read in today's society. Robert M. Appleton, Jr. (author of Running Out Of Road)

I felt this book. I don't feel prose this way often!

Alec Clayton is a master writer. He takes us into places that we would not have experienced without his prose. I read this one fast, and now I realize that I MUST read it again! IT'S just that kind of book: you can't eat all this good food at the table in one seating.

A PAGE-TURNER WITH POETRY DISGUISED AS PROSE

The focal point of this amazing first novel is Travis "Red" Warner, the larger-than-life artist who hailed from Tupelo, Mississippi, a town that spawned the other larger-than-life artist, Elvis Presley. Alec Clayton's narrator is Travis' childhood friend Johnny Lewis. He takes us back in time to Mississippi 1919 to introduce us to Travis' grandparents, then his parents and finally tells the story of Travis growing up in Tupelo. Clayton does a masterful job evoking the cadences of speech and the overweening racial and social status bigotry of the place and time. "Red" Warner's nickname could have just as easily come from his burning passion for his art as from his flaming hair color. In 1970s New York art scene, Red became the darling of the critics, and when that fickle adulation ceased, he flamed out big time and disappeared. Johnny Lewis sets out to find him, and what he finds is...well, read it for yourself! There are times when Clayton's prose becomes pure poetry. This is an author with great potential. I look forward to his next!

One Good Read!

Alec Clayton's Until The Dawn is indeed a wise, wonderful, gritty and honest book. A masterful visual artist himself, Clayton knows how to put pictures in words as well, and along with treating the reader to a moving canvas that encompasses the South of the depression and the sixties, shows us the hardass, cutthroat, coke-snorting art world of New York City in the 1980s. One example will show how good this book is as the reader sees Clayton's sexually-confused artist hero attempting "to find an abstract form that spoke of the faded, Army green aura of alcoholics sleeping on the sidewalks, ashen faces and dull, boozy-pink rims around whitened eyes." This is the real thing. Readers should grab it immediately and enjoy!

Stunning debut novel by a wise new voice in American fiction

Alec Clayton's skillfully-written and highly-entertaining first novel will make you very anxious to see what he will write next."Until the Dawn" alternates between very different places (primarily Tupelo, Mississippi, and New York City) and times (early to late 20th century), piecing together a fascinating and gritty story of the art world. As an artist, a Southerner, and a former New Yorker, Clayton knows these worlds well. But what makes this book special is the...well...FEROCITY with which it is written. It is incredibly evocative, at times shocking and at times charming and beautiful - and it all rings true. Clayton attacks our society's foolish and tragic ills (including racism and homophobia) head-on in a richly politically-incorrect manner. It is a wonderful debut novel by a wise new voice in American fiction. As a librarian, I can assure all librarians that many a library patron will be delighted if you add this to your shelves.