we're so famous book cover

After 20 years, We’re So Famous is now out of print. The last 200 copies have been signed by Daisy, one of the novel's protagonists, to her favorite celebrities and donated to Housing Works in New York City. Email bookstoredonations@housingworks.org to inquire about copies. Suggested price is $25, but feel free to be generous with your offer. All monies go to Housing Works, one of the author's favorite charities.

Read the first and worst review

See actor Malcolm McDowell’s hilarious reaction to the review

See the original American cover

See the title page signed by Bananarama

See the galley cover for the 15th anniversary re-issue


Read an excerpt from Shout Magazine

Read the Village Voice review

Read the Entertainment Weekly review

Read the Vanity Fair mention

Read the New Times profile

Listen to Jaime on Ted Simons's morning radio show (2001)

The One About Publishers Weekly and We’re So Famous (2022)

Jaime Clarke is a graduate of the University of Arizona and holds an MFA from Bennington College. He is the author of the novels We’re So Famous, (the first and worst review + WSF 20th anniversary video by Malcolm McDowell + praise for), Vernon Downs, (praise for + book trailer narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Chris Cooper + alternate trailer), World Gone Water, (praise for + book trailer narrated by Thora Birch), and Garden Lakes, (praise for + book trailer narrated by the author), and the memoirs Poor Man’s Gatsby (praise for) published as Bookmarked: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in IG Publishing’s Bookmarked series, and Typical of the Times: Growing Up in the Culture of Spectacle, which is the basis for his microcast, Typical (Anthony Michael Hall promo), available on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Google, and elsewhere.

His Charlie Martens trilogy–Vernon Downs, World Gone Water, and Garden Lakes–is published in an omnibus by Roundabout Press to celebrate the story collection Minor Characters, (ToC), featuring original stories about the minor characters in the trilogy by Mona Awad, Christopher Boucher, Kenneth Calhoun, Nina de Gramont, Ben Greenman, Annie Hartnett, Owen King, Neil LaBute, J. Robert Lennon, Lauren Mechling, Shelly Oria, Stacey Richter, Joseph Salvatore, Andrea Seigel, and Daniel Torday. The collection features a foreword by Jonathan Lethem, and an introduction by Laura van den Berg.

Clarke is also the editor of The Last Novel Ever Published, as well as the anthologies Don’t You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes, and Talk Show: On the Couch with Contemporary Writers; and co-editor of the anthologies No Near Exit: Writers Select Their Favorite Work from Post Road Magazine (with Mary Cotton), (ToC) and Boston Noir 2: The Classics (with Dennis Lehane and Mary Cotton).

His apprentice work is collected as The Last Lemonade Stand on the Block, and his unpublished novel is called Scavengers.

Under the pseudonym J.D. West, he is the author of the Golden Age detective novel, The Disappearance of Swenson’s Secretary: A Harold Ober Mystery. (Harold Ober with his wife and Scottie Fitzgerald)

He is a founding editor of the literary magazine Post Road, now published at Boston College, and co-owner, with his wife, of Newtonville Books, an independent bookstore in Boston. (Newtonville Books’s 20th anniversary video) (Anniversary video by Mona Awad and Kenneth Calhoun) (Newtonville Books video: “Where do you hold your events?”)