Clevenger lists among his influences Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Matheson, Italo Calvino, Kōbō Abe, Steve Erickson, Mark Danielewski, Will Christopher Baer, Seth Morgan, James Ellroy, Michael Hogan, John O'Brien, Michael Ventura and Rupert Thomson.
It is the story of John Dolan Vincent, a prodigious forger who has been detained for a psychiatric interview following a near-fatal painkiller overdose.
The Contortionist's Handbook has since been translated into five languages - German, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese - as well as published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins.
[1][5][6] In 2005, MacAdam/Cage released Clevenger's second novel, Dermaphoria, the diary of an amnesiac LSD chemist who becomes addicted to a drug which synthesizes the feeling of human touch.
[8] It was filmed in New Orleans and stars Joseph Morgan, Ron Perlman, Walton Goggins and Kate Walsh.