Hooray, today’s the publication date of Brock Clarke’s new novel, Exley! And to celebrate, we’re giving you an exclusive excerpt to read. But first, check out some of the great reviews Exley has already received:

“Frederick Exley’s classic 1968 account of his epic alcoholism, A Fan’s Notes, bears the oxymoronic subtitle ‘’A Fictional Memoir.’ It is the space between those words, between real and fabricated memory, that Clarke examines … With humor as black as Exley’s liver, Clarke picks apart the fictions we tell one another — and those we tell ourselves.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Clarke has a distinctively winning style. He imagines characters so careful in their reasoning that they are deeply, maddeningly unreasonable but also tenderly hapless at the same time. Mr. Clarke is able to make their isolation both heart-rending and comically absurd.”—Janet Maslin, New York Times

“[Clarke] has created a young narrator as winning and wise as Christopher Boone in Mark Haddon’s 2003 bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time … underscore[ing] the gulf that can exist between parents and their children.” – Boston Globe

“Oddly brilliant … The luminously engaging plot reveals the deceptions we cling to in order to survive … Clarke’s breathtaking creativity gives unexpected power to his quirky, touching story.”—Daily Beast

“Clarke pulls off a nice trick here, playing postmodern games while delivering a cleverly plotted story complete with a surprise twist embedded in Miller’s partial understanding of his parents’ tension-riddled relationship.”—Washington Post