Brad Clayton

Brad Clayton is an American author. His novel "The Queen of Hearts: A Transsexual Romance" is a humorous depiction of the life of a transsexual prostitute pursued by a straight lover. Originally written and distributed as an underground publication, it was finally edited and published by ER Publications in 1998. The novel met with critical acclaim but suffered from poor distribution. Clayton was raised in the North Eastern part of the United States, attended an Ivy League college and was friendly with and a sympathiser with the "Weatherman," a radical leftist organization responsible for the murder of a police officer, but Clayton denied any involvement and said he respected their politics, not their actions.

While living in Greenwich Village, his extended circle of friends included the performers at Gerdies Folk City, a popular Greenwich Village night club where Dylan, Biaz, Feliciano and other regularly performed. After leaving college, he traveled throughout Europe performing odd jobs which included working as a farm hand on a dairy farm, a horse wrangler at an equestrian school and a cafe singer who accompanied himself on guitar, mandolin and soda pop bottle.

Clayton became more actively involved in politics when he took center stage at a number of anti-war protests throughout Europe, notably in Bologna, Italy where his impromptu speeches, since he was an American, found much favor with the student movement.

Clayton claimed to one of fifteen participants in a Chinese student takeover of an administrative building where the occupation lasted fifteen days. "I don't know what we accomplished but the parties were a lot of fun, we sat there till we were too bored to continue the strike. We made love, not war, on the same laboratory tables we slept on." Clayton was arrested and detained by the French border police, while driving across the Spanish-French border, on suspicion of smuggling "Dany the Red" Daniel Marc Cohn-Bendit into France during the student revolt in the spring of 1968. When the charges were dropped he was brutally assaulted by the police before being released. (He would not confirm if he had been gang raped and commented, "Let's just say that my posterior was plenty sore without that.) He lived in Italy during the 1970's and was suspected of being involved in the abduction of Gianni Bulgari, but was released for lack of evidence. He commented, "I knew Gianni, he was no diamond in the rough, he was a bore; the fun and games surrounded J. Paul Getty Jr., between drugs, booze and money, he hung on by his fingertips, at least most of them!."

Clayton, believed he was writing in the tradition of Henry Miller. He refers to a brief meeting Miller in Big Sur several years before Miller's death, where he said, "that was when Miller passed the grail to me."

Information for cites includes biographical information listed in The Queen of Hearts; A Transsexual Romance, 1998, ER Publications and press interview material from 1999 distributed by publisher as well as question and answer session with Clayton at The Hotel Roosevelt, Los Angeles June 2000.