THE MINOAN DISTANCE and DARK NIGHT OF THE BODY are two books by L.D. Clark about D.H.Lawrence's travels in Europe and in Mexico, which are illustrated throughout with photographs by his wife, LaVerne Harrell Clark.

"The Minoan Distance: The Symbolism of Travel in D. H. Lawrence" was published by the University of Arizona Press in 1981, and praised for "its abundance and originality," by a reviewer in MODERN FICTION STUDIES, who called it "a landmark in the criticism of Lawrence."
More significantly, by 2001, the volume devoted to the teaching of Lawrence, ed. by M. Elizabeth Sargent and Garry Watson, and published in the Approaches to Teaching World Literature series of the Modern Language Assocation (N.Y.C) records: "Several surveys mention L.D. Clark's THE MINOAN DISTANCE, with its evocative photographs by LaVerne Harrell Clark, as the best single-author book currently available on Lawrence."

Unfortunately, THE MINOAN DISTANCE has since gone out-of-print, as is the case also with L.D.'s earlier book, DARK NIGHT OF THE BODY: D.H. LAWRENCE'S 'THE PLUMED SERPENT,' (University of Texas Press, 1964). On publication, the latter was recognized by a TEXAS QUARTERLY reviewer as "a brilliant study of Lawrence's fascination with Mexico. But it, too, like THE MINOAN DISTANCE is now considered a classic and model among Lawrence studies by students and Lawrentians around the world.
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Part of a longer article on L.D.and LaVerne Harrell Clark and Their Shared Literary Projects is furnished below. The piece appeared in "UpstART Update," a Newsletter of cultural offerings in LaVerne's native Bastrop County (TX), published for only the year 2002, and edited by novelist and BCAT-tv producer, Carolyn Banks, on a grant the NEA awarded her to produce it.

From the front page of the Aug., 2002
issue, with Headline: THE LION'S ROAR
by Mary Ellen Brannan

Smithville's two literary lions are L.D. Clark, English professor emeritus, "retired" with his wife LaVerne Harrell Clark, a Smithville native. L.D. is from Gainesville, which figures mythically in much of his fiction.
From their tree-lined, peaceful homebase, the couple now pursue their side-by-side literary lives: a round of conferences, book festivals, awards dinners, book clubs, and readings, besides separate intensive toil on new works.
"I'm my own agent," says L.D. "And I don't really trust editors, though I've been fairly lucky with mine-they don't edit me too much." Reviewers are positive, for example of [his]"A Bright Tragic Thing" (1992), one says, "the juxtaposition of glory with the tragic... that yields a profound existentialist vision."
LaVerne says, "I've got so many projects that interest me now I'd need nine lives to complete them." She will appear in this year's Who's Who in America.
L.D. and LaVerne recently returned from a Western Writers of America Conference in Wichita, Kansas. Both served as judges, which means "I read 45 paperbacks and LaVerne read 29 novels all in a few weeks this spring."
At the conference, LaVerne won runner-up for the best magazine article of the year. In 1998, she won in the Best First Novel category with Keepers of the Earth, whose setting Upstart readers will recognize as Central Texas.
To summarize their accomplished work to date, L.D. Clark has published nine books [now 12], of which seven are fiction, as well as numerous scholarly articles.
LaVerne Harrell Clark counts seven [now 8] books plus short stories and articles in various anthologies and literary journals.
But perhaps their most enduring work of art is their marriage.
Their first meeting itself seemed pulled from a work of fiction. An undergraduate on the G.I. Bill, L. D. Clark had known combat service in WWII. He happened to take the chair next to LaVerne's on their first night in a short story writing class at Columbia University.
LaVerne recalls, "I was taking the night class and working by day in the publishing world in New York. I was a little younger but had already graduated from Texas Woman's University (Distinguished Alumnus Award, 1973). We soon found out we were both from Texas."
"We became great rivals in the workshop," says LaVerne. "We were very hard on each other." L. D. recalls her "coming along 116th Street, fetching in her raincoat, and borrowing a quarter from me so she could buy a half-hour at a library typewriter. This led to a hot dog in the cafeteria."
LaVerne's recollections are equally romantic. "He looked like David Niven back then. Sometimes people would approach him for an autograph." But it wasn't L. D.'s good looks that attracted her. Instead, "we were both interested in writing and could communicate."
A year later L.D. and LaVerne married at Smithville's First Presbyterian Church. When they returned to New York and saw their old teacher, he was, according to the Clarks, amazed that his two rivals were together.
L.D. earned a doctorate from Columbia, taught one year at Texas A&M, then moved on for a long career at the University of Arizona, establishing himself as a D.H. Lawrence scholar. Some of LaVerne's photographs appear in L.D.'s books and articles on D.H. Lawrence.
"All of my own books, by the way, fiction or non-fiction, include my photographs," she says. An unusual touch. Photos of a farm house, a porch, or a row of Smithville buildings enhance the chapter breaks in Keepers of the Earth. LaVerne resigned after four years of serving as the U. of AZ Poetry Center's director, "because I had to make a choice: spend my time publicizing others or take to my own little cell for my own writing."
L.D. and LaVerne still have to make this quintessential writer's choice, public vs. private, again and again as they continue their careers. They learned not to be as hard on each other once they married, says LaVerne. Still, she doesn't show her work to L.D. "until it is ready for the publisher."