Clayton Masterson has struggled to achieve a certain kind of fame for years. Decades, really. At age 2, his drawing of a rural mouse visiting a city slicker cousin was dismissed as "derivative" and did not make the list of "Two Toddlers to Watch" for the preschool literary review.
In middle school his science project on the reproductive cycle of toads did not make the "Eleven Preteens to Screen" for the district's gifted and promising students newsletter.
At 25, the selection committee of "Twenty T'wonderfuls" sent Clay a rejection letter. He replied with an appeal. They responded that he'd just missed the list, as their 21st choice, with his photographic depictions of bacon and eggs at various diners around town as an homage to The Common Man.
His nine bids for "Thirty-Everythings!" was a debacle, an exercise in repeated futility over a song cycle about the city and a broken heart.
"Lordly 40s"..."Nifty 50s"..."Super 60s" all bust.
At age 72 Clay made the list for "Heavenly 70s" with his city-wide crochet blanket donation program. But only for five minutes. See, a local short story writer included on the original list went into cardiac arrest, clearing the way for Clay. But the author was then revived before the paper went to press.
Having been so consumed with writing bylaws for his "No Saggin" public fashion advocacy group, Clay tragically missed the deadline for "Eighty Greaties." He plunged into a decade of darkness, forsaking his goal.
This tome is the story of his final quest to be included in the public record of notable locals for the Deseret News: "Nine Over 99." Follow Clay, hunchbacked though youthful at age 100, on his year of wild ideas, creative gambits and incendiary artworks, with an unexpected love twist to boot.
