Camden Joy is the pen name used by Tom Adelman for the body of work he created in the 1990s, which exerted a tenacious influence on music criticism and fiction in the years that followed. Joy is credited as the author of two novels, The Last Rock Star Book, or: Liz Phair, a Rant and Boy Island; and three novellas, Hubcap Diamondstar Halo, Palm Tree 13, and Pan (the last of these cowritten with Colin B. Morton), which will be republished in one volume later in 2015 as 3 Novellas; as well as numerous manifestoes, tracts, and other rants, many of which are included in the collection Lost Joy.

Adelman then retired the Camden Joy persona and published two well-received books of baseball history under his own name. Now, fifteen years on, Camden Joy is back to claim his inheritance.

A fuller autobiographical account (and so much more) may be found at camdenjoy.net.

“I know of no one who writes with more passion and more soul.”—Dave Eggers

“One of the most original music writers in this country.”—Ira Glass, This American Life

“Camden Joy [sets] music to narrative with a knowingness and grace that elucidates what it means to be a rock star and/or fan more persuasively than any other contemporary novelist.”—Dennis Cooper

 “Pop culture obsessives will hear echoes of all sorts in Joy’s voice—ecstatic art seraphs Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg, Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs—not to mention the wild cadences of crank religious missives . . . It makes you lust for a world of heightened feelings and values beyond the one we live in—just like art is supposed to do.”—Will Hermes, City Pages