When I first began writing about Clay Dillon more than eight years ago, I began with a novel that has yet to see the light of day, one that had Clay depicted as a lost, horny 14 year old stealing pornography and smoking anything he could get his hands on to deaden the pain of his existence. It’s good that novel never saw the light, because I was still grappling with talking to myself about many of the same obstacles that Clay was unable to perceive in the manuscript.

While that collision in t...