Sometimes I run up against books that are difficult for me. The subject matter is a tough go, or the characters make me cringe, or the tone jars my sensibilities. This might be due to literary discernment sometimes, but other times I have to chalk it up to cowardice – I can’t always summon the fortitude to be put through the emotional or psychological wringer.

This week I bucked up, however, and I’m reporting on two novels that posed challenges for me in different ways.

“The Backside of Nowhere” is Alec Clayton’s latest self-published novel. This Olympia-based writer-artist is a generous participant in the regional cultural scene, reviewing both theater and visual arts for South Sound publications including The News Tribune and The Olympian.

For “Backside of Nowhere,” Clayton draws on his Southern roots and develops a contemporary Gulf Coast novel that traffics in hurricanes, floods, small-town corruption and the people who stay put through it all.

Protagonist David Lawrence is one who got out, however, and burned some pretty significant bridges in doing so. Now a Hollywood star, he hasn’t found any reason good enough for going back to the town where he grew up. But that changes when his sister calls with the news that his dad has had a heart attack.

David has been estranged for years from the man, a larger-than-life figure who owns the local casino and has multiple business dealings both above board and not. But David is willing to return for the sake of his mom and his sisters.

Clayton weaves several points of view and two generations’ worth of flashbacks into this story, creating an illuminating collage of perspectives. Incredibly, however, this background does little to inform the day-to-day behavior of the characters, who persist in being superficial and coarse in their dealings with one another.

While ribaldry has its place, the surplus of cleavage, booze, and sexual reminiscing in this tale overwhelms a potentially interesting plot.

On the other hand, a new book published by Seattle literary press Black Heron is a finely calibrated work of fiction. “Crossings” explores the dark side of immigration and the American dream.

Novelist Leonard Chang intertwines the desperate lives of two Korean immigrants, Sam and Unha. Sam is deeply in debt after the long illness and death of his beloved first wife from cancer. Unha is an illegal immigrant who has been forced into prostitution.

Notions of loyalty, responsibility and honor are twisted into nearly unrecognizable forms as Sam, Unha and other immigrants around them struggle to create new lives in a land that, for all of its familiar landmarks, will seem like a frighteningly foreign place even to American readers.

There is considerable violence in “Crossings,” perpetuated in both slashing scenes of brutality and tiny acts of betrayal that accumulate with eventually devastating effect.

This soul-searing tragedy is a strong 21st century addition to the oeuvre of American immigrant fiction. But that doesn’t make it any easier to read.

The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Northwest. She can be reached at bkmonger@nwlink.com.

The Backside of Nowhere

By Alec Clayton

ClaytonWorks, 248 pages, $15

Crossings

By Leonard Chang

Black Heron, 318 pages, $24.95