A Clod of Wayward Marl (2001)

Rick DeMarinis's novel, published in Tucson by Dennis McMillan Publications in 2001, follows Guido Tarkenen, a writer of paperback "slasher trash" now a rookie professor in La Siberia, a remote town on the southwestern cusp of the country, where Martin Gassaway, a once-famous novelist on the faculty, and his circle want his help. The title comes from Beatrice's line in Much Ado About Nothing; DeMarinis, who had recently returned to Missoula after a long teaching stint in El Paso, notes in his author's biography that he does not resemble the clod of wayward marl "much". (Open Library)

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Hamilton (unidentified model): Unsure whether Gassaway is lying to him again, but flattered that Alana Falconburg is treating him as a colleague, Guido shoots his cuff and looks at his Hamilton wristwatch, a birthday present from Kirsten five years earlier, and excuses himself to meet his writing workshop. The gesture is part of the respectable new self the book's opening describes, the rookie professor with an earnest paunch. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: He shot his cuff smartly and looked at his Hamilton wristwatch-a birthday gift five years ago from Kirsten. "I've got to meet my writing workshop," he said. (Rick DeMarinis, A Clod of Wayward Marl, scan cataloged as Dennis McMillan Publications, 2001, p. 119, where the OCR prints the dash after "wristwatch" as a hyphen; Internet Archive scan OCR)