[5] Clarke began publishing his work while he was in graduate school, beginning with short stories in literary journals such as Mississippi Review.
It tells the story of a directionless young white man in Little Falls, New York, who takes it upon himself to locate a Puerto Rican friend who has disappeared.
[12] In The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote that the book "feels like the bright debut of an ingeniously arch humorist".
[16] Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, Heller McAlpin called the novel a "postmodern metafiction" whose "sometimes dizzying" complexity was "not altogether effective".
Described as a "transcontinental screwball comedy",[21] its plot revolves around a Danish cartoonist, on the run from terrorists, who relocates to upstate New York.
Writing in The New York Times, J. Robert Lennon admired the novel's mix of "bewildering" energy and emotional investigation of its characters.
[22] Kathleen Rooney, writing in the Chicago Tribune, echoed Lennon's sentiment by praising the book's "zany" story.
[23] The Dallas Morning News proclaimed the book "among the funniest and most relevant social satires",[24] while Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, said it was "impossible to put down".
[25] Clarke published his third story collection, The Price of the Haircut, in 2018, the same year that he was appointed the A. Leroy Greason Professor of English at Bowdoin College.
[29] His stories are known for their elaborate, improbable plots and witty observations, leading critics to classify his work as social satire that uses surrealism to illuminate characters and their worlds.
According to the journalist Catherine Keenan, Clarke's "interest is in fiction itself, particularly the stories we tell to insulate ourselves from life's overwhelming truths".