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An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
Unavailable
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
Unavailable
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
Audiobook10 hours

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

Written by Brock Clarke

Narrated by Daniel Passer

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

3/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Sam Pulsifer, the hapless hero of this incendiary novel, has come to the end of a very long and unusual journey, and for the second time in his life he has the time to think about all the things that have and have not come to pass.

The truth is, a lot of remarkable things have happened in Sam's life. He spent ten years in prison for accidentally burning down poet Emily Dickinson's house-and unwittingly killing two people in the process. He emerged at age twenty-eight and set about creating a new life-almost a new identity-for himself. He went to college, found love, got married, fathered two children, and made a new start-and then watched in almost-silent awe as the vengeful past caught up with him, right at his own front door.

As, one by one, the homes of other famous New England writers are torched, Sam knows that this time he is most certainly not the guilty one. To prove his innocence, he sets out to uncover the identity of this literary-minded arsonist. What he discovers, and how he deals with the reality of his discoveries, is both hilariously funny and heartbreakingly sad. For, as Sam learns, the truth has a way of eluding capture, and then, when you finally get close enough to embrace it, it turns and kicks you in the ass.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 4, 2007
ISBN9780739357880
Unavailable
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

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Rating: 2.9247421907216498 out of 5 stars
3/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (2007) by Brock Clarke was the February selection for my alumni chapter book club. It was a divisive book for sure as 1 book club member hated, 1 liked it and 1 said she didn't like but decided it wasn't so bad as we talked about. I'm in the "like it" crowd, perhaps the one who liked it most of the four of us. It has a lot of the things that appeal to me - New England, literary allusions, satire, dysfunctional families, and quirkiness. Lots of quirkiness.The basic gist of the story is that at the age of 18 the narrator Sam Pulsifer burned down the Emily Dickinson house killing an amorous couple inside. He served 10 years in prison, then went to college, got married and tried to live a normal life raising a family in a drab suburb outside of Amherst. Then, mysteriously, other houses of writers in New England suffer from arson and Sam's life falls apart.Sam is the ultimate unreliable narrator and everything he reveals about himself is that he doesn't have much in the way of social skills. At first I was very irritated by him, but was eventually won over once I got into the groove of the book. Still I can understand what my colleagues didn't like about the book. What won me over is the hillarious asides and the satrical portrayals of New England archetypes: a scruffy Brahmin, uber-liberal academics, and the reserved, independent New Hampshire man. Clarke both parodies these literary characteristics and sets his characters free from being just characters.So my final judgment is that this is a fun and humorous novel that will appeal to those with a literary bent.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A fun read. Great characterization. Disappointing ending.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Sam Pulsifer is having a bad day. He is, in fact, having a bad life. Like many modern, middle aged men, he is balding, gaining weight and feeling weighed down by the relationships, or lack there of, in his life. The point of distinction between Pulsifer and other men is that when he was a teenager, Sam accidentally set fire to the Emily Dickinson house, inadvertently killing two people inside.The present finds Sam a married father of two with a job he doesn’t hate. The catch is that he has buried his past, leaving his wife and children in the dark about the house burning, his related incarceration, even his parents’ existence. When the son of the couple killed in the house fire shows up on the Pulsifer doorstep, Sam’s well-woven lie starts unraveling fast. To add insult to injury, someone is setting fires to writers’ homes in New England and before long the police are also at Sam’s front door.I feel like I need to write two reviews of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England. I wanted so badly to like it. There is a postmodern vibe to it, which gave me hope that the rampant weirdness throughout the novel would lead somewhere profound. There are fleeting strings of wisdom that float through the pages but overall it seems to be a bland attempt at creating a satirical memoir. Perhaps the problem is that it achieved its goal: to poke fun at memoirs. I will not pick up a memoir unless forced to so the style, however ironic might have been the turn on off.I do not need characters to be likeable, relatable or even halfway decent individuals. In fact, I find that a book is more fun when none of these things are true. While this was the case for An Arsonist’s Guide, it did not make the book more interesting, only dull. The story and prose read like a combination of the twisted parts of Irving, a plus in my camp, and the readability of a slog through The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, a strong negative.Now that the hard part is over, I feel like I should address the parts of the book that made it such a disappointment: the parts I liked. If there was nothing positive to say, I would have enjoyed the book for what it was but like many reviewers on the piece, I wanted it to be so much more. The writing, over all, is great. There are small stabs at absurdity and fun author references. Mostly through Sam’s mother and a foul-mouthed college professor, the joys and pitfalls of being too well-read are put on display. Sam and his collected friends, foes and family members start to dissect the many issues with over-praised classical literature.While I never found out why the periodical reviews plastered on front of the book proclaimed its hilarity, I did find myself giggling on the inside more than once. The humor, though, is more of an acerbic wittiness than it is a laugh riot and it is sparsely distributed with much to be desired in between. All in all, this is going to go down on my list of books that could have been great. It has better moments but over all, I think that it either tried too hard or didn’t try hard enough.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Plus the every illusive half star. I got the humor; I just got bored.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    No one missed anything on this one. The characters drove me crazy, the writing annoyed me, and the plot was not at all engaging. There were way too many similes and metaphors and none of them made sense. Too many sentences started with "he's the kind of person who..."or "it's the sort of thing that..."or "it's like the feeling you get when..." I found what followed these phrases made no sense at all. There were also these profound insights about the human condition that were not profound, insightful, or all that related to the human condition. And the part where the characters dressed up like middle easterners made me want to throw the book. On a positive note, it was a lively book club discussion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm not sure why so many people gave this very low star rankings. I suppose it is a bit unique in terms of how it's written; you do have to pay attention and stick with where the narrator goes to really enjoy the fullness of the nuances. But I found a lot of the lower ratings kind of harsh.
    So, this was a very enjoyable read! Funny...not laugh out loud but amusing because the narrator's observations about certain types of social norms and lifestyles is so spot on. Which makes his own inability to see what's going on in his own life all the more ironic.
    And, too, there is the complication that his parents lied to him about so much during his youth. He really had no choice but to become the loser he was as an adult. The story shows him peeling back those layers and taking responsibility for his own life...and even for that of his parents.
    So, layered on much deeper levels than you'd think. The layers don't all come clear until really the last handful of pages, so well worth sticking with it if you're unsure whether to continue reading to the end.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is one of those books where the author has the main character express "deep thoughts" which are actually just pithy sayings like "but can any of us really hope for more for our kids than that they don't remember us?" which makes no sense at all. Practically everything the narrator says is boring and shallow, which the author tries to disguise as profound. I have no idea why this is a popular book. Horrible.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England proved to be one of those book titles I could not resist forever. As an avowed book lover and one who has enjoyed visiting author homes for a long time, I shuddered at the very thought of what might be inside the covers of this one – and what I found was even stranger than I expected it would be. An Arsonist’s Guide is not for everyone, but if you enjoy books about books and writing, humorous novels combining farce and satire, or characters so unrealistic that they start to seem real to you, you will probably enjoy it. Sam Pulsifer, whose father is an editor and whose mother is an English professor, accidentally burned down Emily Dickinson’s historic home. His parents probably could not visualize a crime more devastating and embarrassing than that one, but it gets worse: the fire also claimed the lives of the two people still inside the old house. Now, after serving ten years in prison, Sam is returning to Amherst, the scene of his crime, because he has no place else to go. He just wants to hide while he figures out what to do with the rest of his life.The past decade has not been kind to Sam’s parents. His crime and ensuing imprisonment have taken such a toll on his mother and his father, both physically and mentally, that Sam barely recognizes them or their new lifestyle. But even then, it is only when the historic homes of other famous authors begin to go up in smoke all around New England that Sam understands that his chances of maintaining a low profile while he regroups are gone. Due to the timing and proximity of the fires, Sam is, of course, the most logical suspect. He gets it – and he knows that if he doesn’t prove his innocence, he is likely headed back to prison for a long, long time.The problem is that Sam Pulsifer is a chronic “bungler,” something that was first pointed out rather gleefully to him by a group of white collar criminals he met in prison. As he moves from one crime scene to the next, interviewing people and observing the physical evidence, managing to implicate himself in one fire after the other, Sam proves their assessment to be an astute one. He is indeed a “bungler.”Brock Clarke’s utterly absurd characters and far-fetched plot are a perfect match for the satirical look at life (and the literary lifestyle) that he presents in An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England. Ironically, the book is filled with literary allusions and observations that will be most appreciated by the very folks whose lifestyle is being lampooned. Clarke has something to say about the complexities of life, love, and marriage, and he says it well. This may very well be one of those love-it-or-hate-it books with little opinion between the two extremes, but book lovers should give it the shot it deserves.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I am a bit on the fence with this one.The narrator, Sam, spent 20 years in prison after accidentally burning down the Emily Dickinson House, killing two people he did not know were there in the process. He tries to go home to his parents, but soon must move on and try to build a new life. He succeeds for a while. Then, after a visit from the son of the couple he accidentally killed in the fire, his marriage and life start to fall apart, and back to his parents he goes. Drinking, his parents strange relationship, a box of letters, visitors from his past and someone trying to frame him for new fires, send Sam's life into a spiral that he is desperate to understand.While I enjoyed the premise of the story, I felt that it bogged down a little at times, and I found a few aspects of the ending left me wanting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fantastic book. Quirky and compelling on every page.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I stumbled upon this in the bookstore one day and after, reading the first paragraph, was hooked. loved it. love love love. thank you for a smart and funny book, Clarke. yum.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I am more often surprised by the ends of books than not these days. Am I losing my plot-fu? Am I narratively challenged? This is the second book in a year which has discombobulated me. (The first was Mark Watson's Bullet Points.) The narrator was so bland, so dreary that I wasn't prepared for the sudden horror. I think the author wanted to be clever but instead he was depressed.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Well, trying to read this book right after finishing [book:A Moveable Feast] didn't do it (or me, really) any favors. Perhaps that made it more likely to annoy me. The fact that it was awful didn't help, either.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book. The narrator is a humorous self-deprecating bumbler with some down-to-earth views about life and luck. The story is funny and sad. The characters are delightfully weird and flawed. The "mystery" is compelling. The settings are rich and lively. The social commentary is witty. I couldn't put it down.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I did not like this book.
    __________
    I am stuck. Got a few chapters in, but this author is the type who loves to foreshadow everything. "And that is why I ended up in prison and so and so ended up blah, blah, blah, but we'll get to that later." I can deal with this every so often, but tell the freaking story, don't tell me what you're going to tell me later! Had to put this away for a bit. The premise is interesting so will likely come back to it later.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I sort of like the idea of a novel that's unafraid to take on some of the canon's sacred cows, and this novel's admittedly terrific title promises exactly that. The book does do an intermittently excellent job of skewering some genuinely annoying features of the literary landscape. Oprah's Book Club readers, pedantic, self-involved Southern writers, theory-obsessed literary bomb throwers, and shallow would-be memoir writers all get what's coming to them. The book can't keep it up, though, and most of the blame, I think, can be attributed to the book's main character. I can understand why the author chose to build his narrative around an outsider to the literary world, in this case, the son of an English teacher and editor who'd spent a decade in prison and twenty years away from the world of books, Still, you would have thought he might have picked up some life lessons during this time, even if they aren't the sort you find in novels. Instead, he's a completely guileless, rather blank Rip van Winkle type whose job it is to stumble through the plot and coin pithy aphorisms that a smarter, or more realistic, character couldn't get away with. Reading this novel is like watching Forrest Gump teach a survey course in literature, it's often more uncomfortable than entertaining. What's worse, despite his character's perennial poker face, Clarke's take on the uncultured exurbs comes off as pretty condescending, which is pretty fatal to effective satire, and I say that as a person who probably shares many of the author's cultural tastes and political views. I can only imagine how someone who doesn't might read it.I'm not quite ready to say that "An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England" is a terrible book. After all, literature can always use another discussion about what its purpose is; I think that asking this question is something that all really good novels do. There's a lot of heartache on display in this book behind it's wacky plot machinations, and some of it, I think, rings true. And I'd have to be a real grump to claim it wasn't genuinely funny in places. Still, this one only gets a couple of stars. A shame, really, since, as other reviewers have mentioned here, the premise seems to have a good deal of potential.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I had high hopes for this one. The book begins with a man getting out of prison after serving 20 years for burning down the Emily Dickens house (accidentally killing two people inside). Of course, this rips his current family apart. When he gets out he goes to school, gets married, has kids, etc. But then other famous authors homes start burning up! Is he doing it? How can he clear his name? It's a GREAT plot and story thread.Unfortunately, for me, there are so many characters involved that we spend time tying to get to know via the narrator's quirky voice and attention span, that it got tiresome.I think some people may enjoy the "anxious" thinking of the character, but it just got old to me.If the middle third could have been trimmed down, allowing the great premise and plot to carry me along, I think I would have been a lot happier.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book is frustrating and disappointing. The cover, the title, and especially the recommendation blurbs all suggest that it is full of wry, delightful silliness and wit. It is not. Instead, it contains a very earnest, thoughtful story of a man who never seems to get past his own mistakes. He is, as he describes himself, a bumbler. He makes mistakes, and then is unable to keep himself from making them worse because of his inability to connect with the people in his life, and his failure to understand what is expected of him as a social being. That premise is not bad. In fact, I'm sure that many people could identify with such a character if he were better written. That plus the premise of "Writers' homes in New England" getting burnt down could have made for a fascinating (and funny) book (as advertised). The part that I found difficult was the forced drama of the way the story unfolds. Other reviewers have put it well: the characters often seem to act in ways that are necessary to advance the plot structure, but that are false and untrue to human nature. As Sam and his parents brought to light their various family 'skeletons,' they came to realizations about what they meant, and about what must then be done. But those realizations are not necessarily true, and the decisions that are made don't make sense. It's frustrating that the characters can't seem to see that.Sam does learn some things, and grow as a person by the end of the book, and parts of that are satisfying. But by the end, it just felt very depressing and hopeless. My apologies to the author, but I wouldn't recommend it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    At the age of 18, Sam Pulsifer burned down the Emily Dickinson house, accidentally killing two people. Now he has served his time and is married with two kids, who know nothing of his infamous past, when the son of the couple he killed returns from that past to threaten it all. This leads Sam to return to his estranged parents and pick up the threads of their dysfunctional relationship while ferreting out some family secrets. Meanwhile, someone has started burning down the homes of other famous New England authors, and Sam must find out why before he takes the blame.For me, this was an uneven book. At times, it was quite funny, and I enjoyed its satirical commentary on literature and the way it can affect us, often not for the better. But I felt like too many characters behaved in ways that were necessary to advance the story rather than in line with their natural motivations, which strained my disbelief some. And the narrative voice was rather long-winded and breathless, which could get annoying. All in all, it was a decent read that might have benefited from some judicious rewriting.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Pretty funny, a bit disturbing, but a little too trying-to-be-clever for me. Plus, one technique overused to the nth degree:"...snow on the ground. The kind of snow that (something clever/ironic/sarcastic).""...boots he had on. The kind of boots that (repeat).", "...big white sack of a dress. The kind of big white sack of a dress that (sigh)."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I started off liking this but it quickly became humdrum. There are moments of humor that shine, but overall I found it hard to care enough about the characters to enjoy the story itself. I had too many issues with decisions they made (ie why the main char's wife gets together with a man who lied to her and is trying to destroy her ex - how is that better than what he did (lie))? So, sadly it petered out for me roughly 1/3rd of the way in. Good title, good idea, lacked full impact.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Initially I loved this book. The story was of a man who'd accidentally burnt down the Emily Dickinson house. The fire he started with his cigarette butt caused the death of two people who were in the building at the time. As a result, Senor Firestarter ended up in prison for 10 years.When he got out, he started a new life for himself - or tried to. He married a woman, had children and moved far enough away that no one knew what he'd done. 10 years after he'd been out of prison, the son of the people who'd died in the fire showed up and started making trouble for him.There were a lot of amusing parts in this book, and in fact I initially thought that the writer's comedic voice was pretty fantastic. However, the guy clearly needs an editor. He starts many of his sentences the same way and repeats jokes throughout the book that just don't work.By the time I finished this book, I was really disappointed that it had not accomplished all it could have.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An interesting premise, and some fine humor in the early going, but the plot is absurd with character's actions not linked to any believable motivations.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quirky, but not totally out there or even very implausible. Protagonist is frustratingly meek sometimes but overall the book is well-written and a good read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the best books I've read in years.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Every so often, a book grabs your attention with the opening sentence and holds you all the way to the last period. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of those books. Brock Clarke’s attempt at a quirky, humorous series of misfortunes simply fails to achieve the most important goal of any story – making the reader care about the story.An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England is the rambling diatribe of a hapless – in fact, clueless – self described ‘everyman’ who can’t help being railroaded for crimes he didn’t commit. Clarke foreshadows almost everything that is going to happen to Sam Pulsifer within the first 30 pages, so there is no mystery or tension to propel the reader along. There is an inevitability to everything that happens to Sam and he has no interest in even participating in his own life, blind to what is going on around him only because he has his hand over his own eyes. The entire plot is such a quagmire it prevents the story from being anything other than a bore. In addition to the entire story being uninteresting, the prose is grating. Told from Sam’s perspective, it is an annoying internal dialog where he consistently demonstrates that he is incapable of completing a full sentence without wandering off to some other topic. After about two chapters of this I was not only frustrated with reading it, I didn’t care about what happened to any of the characters, especially Sam. Listening to him tell his story I quickly understood why he didn’t have any friends and nobody wanted to talk to him about anything. Even Sam is uninterested in himself, which leaves anyone reading his story wondering why we should be interested in him either.I’m not sure if Clarke was attempting to paint a picture of what it is like inside the mind of a hopeless victim of life. But whether it was or not, the story really missed the mark and only succeeded in making me wish I had purchased something else to read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Great title, excellent idea, depressing execution. The mix of humor and tragedy is off. Too much tragedy, not enough humor, especially the ending.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sam Pulsifer is eighteen when he accidentally burns down the Emily Dickenson House in Amherst, Massachusetts. Two people perish in the fire and Sam is sentenced to ten years in prison. When Sam gets out he heads home, but after vandalism by angry neighbors, Sam's parents suggest he go off to college. He does, meets Anne Marie, gets married and has two children. He never tells Anne Marie about burning down the house or his time in prison. He tells her his parents were killed in a fire. But then the son of the couple that perished shows up and threatens Sam's new life. Sam ends up back at his parents house when Anne Marie throws him out. But then other famous dead authors' homes start getting torched and Sam is the prime suspect and he sets out to clear his name.my review: I have had this book on my shelf for almost a year. I don't know why it just sat there and I'm not even sure why I puled it off the shelf. But I am so happy I did! This was a dark comedy of a novel but also a mystery and a bit of a coming of age story. Sam is the narrator of his story and he is naive and big-hearted. It is almost like reading a book with a child protagonist. He is funny as he tries to play detective. He was never allowed by his English teacher mother to read them growing up, so that is why he makes so many mistakes in his investigation. Sam looks for answers about his family and himself everywhere. He even tries the bookstore. There were several memoirs about the difficulty of writing memoirs, and even a handful of how-to-write-a-memoir memoirs: A Memoirist's Guide to Writing Your Memoirs and the like. All of this made me feel better about myself, and I was grateful to the books for teaching me-without my even having to read them- that there were people in the world more desperate, more self-absorbed, more boring than I was.This was an unusual, imaginative book and I really can't begin to do justice to it with a review. But it was smart, funny, touching, and addictive. I read it in two sittings. I just really suggest you read it and see for yourself.rating 5/5reread definitelyrecommend yes, yes, yes!!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Not exactly fine literature, but a fun book nonetheless. Quite amusing writing style and interesting characters. Needless to say, there's a lot of fire in the storyline!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I was so disappointed in this. (And relieved I didn't buy it.) It got such good reviews. All over the place. But I just can't be entertained by or interested in idiot main characters. And Sam was even worse than the fellow in Moore's Dirty Jobs, because he was totally self-centered to boot. I don't care if it's a delicious satire. If I wouldn't want to associate with him in real life, I don't want to read about him. No one else was particularly charismatic either, and the zaniness got increasingly forced. Maybe if I was more of a lit person. I recognized Russell Banks and all, but I was never assigned to study anyone in-depth in school, so the skewering does nothing for me. I gave it two stars because Clarke is nevertheless a good writer. There were many lovely turns of phrase and entertaining metaphors. Just not this plot and not this cast of characters.